Tertiary
by Visual Pun
Summary: Taylor gets a handle on her powers a little earlier and the story begins one week before canon. Rated T for language and implied situations in later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

Tertiary

Amakudari 1.1

 _January 3rd, 2011: Glass doors to the emergency room swept open to let an admitting nurse meet a team of paramedics unloading a gurney from their ambulance._

 _"Teenage female found shoved into a locker filled with biohazardous materials, unresponsive at scene, BP 120 over..."_

 _"Whoa, whoa, WHOA!" The admitting nurse interrupted the Paramedic, "Jesus Christ , couldn't you brush the bugs off of her?"_

 _"We tried, but she's still covered in all that crap."_

 _"The hospital was fumigated just last week," the nurse said, "I'm going to go get that bug fogger I bought this morning, she needs it more than my apartment does."_

 _"Put an oxygen mask on her, we'll get started when she gets back."_

April 1st, 2011 **:** I woke up with the alarm, took my regular morning jog, showered and got ready as usual. The feeling of dread at going to school was still there, but no sensation of butterflies in the stomach was going to halt what I had prepared for this day. I ran down the extensive checklist in my head yet again as I gathered all the necessary bugs within my range.

 _January 4th: I struggled back to consciousness and looked around the blurry, unfamiliar room. Teal cabinets, white sheets, and chrome railings around her bed came more or less recognizable even without glasses._

 _"I'm in a hospital" I thought._

 _"_ _...a sptimnhet of bnaanas fserh form Bizarl ctserouy of the cpae Sedritr..."_

 _Memories of the ordeal in the locker rushed back, but I forced them aside and pushed the call button. I heard the chime sound down the hall at the nurse's station and the squeak of tennis shoes of tile walking towards my room._

 _...letcoad on Lrod Seret beweten the Lrarbiy and ftifh ..."_

 _"Hi honey," the nurse said when she entered my room, "You're awake already, that's a very good sign. Do you know where you are?"_

 _"...and now weehtar with our own ..."_

 _"Um, in a hospital... but I don't know which one... " I said. "Have you called my Dad yet? He's Danny Hebert and he works at the Dockworkers Association..."_

 _"... the lnog rgane fsoercat, caler and clod Wadensedy and Trudsahy,..."_

 _"Oh sure, honey, " said the nurse, "He's in a conference room yelling at a school district representative right now. I'll be sure to let him know you're up."_

 _"...Fardiy wtih one to tehre ihecns of amcuctuloain, and hviaeer sonw epxceted oevr the weneekd..."_

 _"OK, um, sorry. That TV is a little distracting"_

 _"Wow, you've got crazy good hearing. The only TV on in this wing is in the waiting room at the end of the hall."_

 _"...form all of us hree at cnahenl two nwes, gongohidt Bortokn Bay..."_

 _"Taylor! Thank goodness you're awake!" my father said as he crushed me in a big bear hug._

 _I focused my attention on my Dad and I hugged him back. The muffled sound of the TV faded into the background, a lone spider spinning its web in the opposite corner of the waiting room._

"Hi Dad" I said coming to breakfast with Danny. He was reading the paper. I was unsure if I should bring up the bullying now or... No, that die has been cast. Gotta go through with it. We finished breakfast, Danny said goodbye and drove to work.

I picked up my bags, locked the door and headed to the bus stop.

 _January 6th: Taylor went out for her second ever morning jog even though it had snowed, but taking that excuse now would just lead to more excuses later. She reached out and sensed bugs in crawlspaces under lots of homes, and all over inside the Smith's place, empty ever since they went on vacation last year and got caught in Behemoth's latest attack. The cold and fatigue wore at her, but she pushed to go just a little farther than yesterday, Satisfied, Taylor turned to go home and got a clump of snow down her back from a jostled tree branch._

 _"Just perfect." Taylor thought._

Her bus arrived at Winslow, but Taylor had got off the stop before to better avoid any of her regular bullies or their cohorts in the crowds. She saw some poor guy getting kicked in the butt over and over again, until he turned around and pulled off the 'Kick Me' sign taped to his back. At least it's enough of a distraction for her to toss the old duffel bag into the shrubs in front of the school. As the last students get to class hundreds of Black Widows emerge from the duffel bag into the crawlspace beneath the school trailing silk, braiding it as they go. The bag suddenly is yanked inside by the lines of silk to leave no evidence behind.

 _January 17th: It was hard to believe it had taken that long for the school to pay for her medical bills and settle, but the inevitability of her return to school had finally happened. Of course the bullying picked up again right away. Emma and Madison pretended she was invisible until Sophia knocked her into a garbage can. Taylor made it to her first class, Computers with Mrs. Knott, and found her school email folder completely filled with abuse. Taylor choked back a sob, not willing to let this beat her down, even though she felt alone and outnumbered._

 _Then she sensed all the bugs in the crawlspace beneath the entire building, in the walls, everywhere. A slow smile formed as Taylor realized she would never be outnumbered ever again._

 _Taylor felt calm as she created an entire new mail account and caught up on the class assignments she had missed during her absence._

Taylor had finished today's computer assignment in Mrs. Knott's class half an hour ago and focused on maneuvering all the pieces into place for later. The bell to signal the end of class was about to ring and on her way out of the classroom, her favorite and most sympathetic teacher stopped Taylor to talk.

"Honestly dear, no one would have blamed you if you decided to skip. Especially today."

"I know Mrs. Knott, but I'm not going to let a few pranks get the better of me."

Taylor raced through the halls to Mr. Gladly's class, she ducked and weaved around the slower students since it seemed every guy who thought he could get into Madison or Emma's pants tried to score points with a trip, shove or... Taylor ducked when whatshisface from Art class pulled out a can of what turned out to only be silly string. Although she wouldn't have put it past Emma to get someone to try and use actual spray paint to tag her, especially after that _'Your shirt looks like it could use some mustard'_ bit had put the cafeteria at the top of her no-go zones last May.

 _January 20th: Tripped down the stairs by Sophia after lunch, Taylor limped through the rest of the school day. She passed the Smith's vacant house on her way home. Hadn't their son played soccer? He surely wouldn't have taken his shin guards on vacation, would he? Taylor decided to try a little bug-assisted breaking and entering, happy at figuring out how to unlock the service door to the garage using the cockroaches inhabiting the kitchen. Maybe they had a first aid kit too..._

Taylor tracked everyone in the school with a bug or three for over two months and it was second nature by now. Even if she couldn't always avoid the bullying, at least she led them into dust-ups between the ABB and E88 wanna-be kids every so often. Alone in the History classroom for a few more moments, Taylor tipped her backpack under Madison's desk and directed bugs on their way with their cargoes.

 _February 1st: Apparently the spiders had gone on autopilot spinning silk into her costume while she was gone at school. The leg continued to taper almost to a point, with only an inch round hole remaining. Maybe she could cut it off and turn the cone of spider silk into a sock or something. It was just too bad the most effective weaving only happened while she was there to guide the spiders. If only... Taylors train of thought came to a sudden halt as she saw the old duffel bag she had taken to camp under the stairs. She was already wearing shin guards and kneepads under her baggy clothing, why not have a few continue to weave while she wore her costume under her clothes, and bring along a few more to weave squares of silk underneath the school during the day. She could even bring back bugs to feed the spiders at home and leave some to feed on the bugs beneath Winslow._

Madison swanned into the room as if she owned the place, smirked at Taylor with a look of disgust and chatted with her friend Julia until Mr. Gladly began the lesson. Of course Madison would have covered the seat of her desk in glue had Taylor not arrived first. Mr. Gladly, purposefully oblivious as always to his favorites, hadn't even noticed any of the past weeks action against her. At least this time what goes around came around as the start of the lecture was interrupted when Mr. Gladly discovered the whoopie cushion beneath the pillow on his stool only when it was too late. When the class erupted in laughter Taylor took advantage of the opportunity to prepare for later. As predicted, Madison went to sharpen her pencil in order to knock her books to the floor yet again, giving Taylor the opening she needed .

 _February 10th: Even though the completed armored costume trousers kept most injuries from happening, especially that 'accidental' broom handle whacked across her shins yesterday, it was the emotional punishment which was so hard to bear. So she thought of her mother's flute as a talisman of... she wasn't even sure anymore. Not after it had been vandalized so thoroughly. Those bitches regularly took so much pleasure reminding her how they destroyed something she valued above everything else , so in return she would destroy something each of them valued._

 _Her wanderings home brought her near Emma's neighborhood. A derelict outbuilding nearby was infested with termites... No, too obvious. Especially when she came out as a bug-controlling Hero. So... no direct bug attacks. No secondary effects which could only be caused by bugs, like termite damage either. She'd need to go a further level removed._

The bell rang and Mr. Gladly's class ended. Madison stood up with a twirl, lightly flaring her skirt which was a little too short for the cool of spring. Madison exited with Julia and other hangers on, and she could detect Emma, Sophia and others gathering. Taylor took a deep calming breath, steeled her resolve and strode out of the classroom.

 _February 18th: WHOOF Sophia sneered above her as Taylor struggled and failed to remain upright after being punched in the solar plexus the instant she stepped through the door into Art Class. She couldn't breathe...Taylor had detected the tick burrowed under the skin at the base of Sophia's neck, but she expected a regular shove, not to end up lying paralyzed, gasping for breath on the floor._

 _Holy pink fairy armadillo dicks, that was too much! Other students gasped, but remained cowed into silence, knowing any action to help her would condemn them as well._

 _Fuck it._

 _Taylor summoned a hornet from the nest underneath the boiler room. It took a few minutes for the formerly hibernating insect to find its way to her classroom, and it finally crawled though the grate and dive bombed Sophia. Mandibles bit just above Sophia's hairline which caused her tormentor to flinch, but when the hornet attempted to sting it... couldn't. Sophia reached up and crushed it before there was any second attempt. But how... Weird._

Emma and Sophia met Madison, Julia and the other hangers-on at the base of the stairs. To their surprise Taylor turned away from them and merged with the traffic flowing to the Cafeteria. "So the loser's not running away to one of her regular hidey-holes," Sophia noted snidely, "Big mistake."

 _February 21st: Good thing she'd started on Madison's stuff the previous week, because that sucker-punch last Friday moved Sophia to her top priority. She would have followed her tormentor home that day, but the out-of-town Track Meet had denied her that possibility. It was weird actually staying after school for a change instead of racing to leave this hellhole, especially noting the flow of individuals and groups by the bugs planted on them as they left for the day, met up with friends, or like Sophia participated in afterschool activities._

 _Now would be a perfect opportunity to put athlete's foot fungus in Sophia's street shoes, if only she knew how. Taylor directed bugs into Sophia's locker to burrow a small hole in the left shoe instep padding and plant a small chunk of gravel there as a consolation prize. A few students hung out in the bleachers as the coaches put the athletes through their paces. Eventually Taylor realized there were drug deals happening beneath the bleachers as one kid after another walked up to a Merchant gang member and left once their business completed. Eventually Track practice ended and ... Sophia just made a drug deal?! While she was in the shower cockroaches investigated and felt something hard, smooth, curved. Little bottles? Also crinkly plastic packages, syringes maybe. Taylor tried to follow Sophia home, but instead of the bus she was sure Sophia should have taken, she instead got into a van which drove the other way._

 _'I'll just have to try again tomorrow' Taylor thought._

Taylor was among the first to find a seat since she wasn't waiting in line for food like almost everyone else. She picked a table with her back to the wall and near an exit so she could run if her plans went south. Taylor opened her backpack and placed her art project on the table to work on it a little more before class next period. Moments later Emma, Sophia, Madison and their clique entered the Cafeteria. Emma scanned the room and smirked when she spotted Taylor. With a nod to the others the mob of bullies bore down upon her. Spiders in the vents and on the ceiling and mixed swarms on top of fluorescent light fixtures made themselves ready.

 _March 1st: It took a solid week until she tracked down where Sophia lived. Taylor got on the bus a stop before Winslow, and hid while Sophia got on and stayed busy on her phone almost the whole time. Then she pulled out a second phone and put it away after a glance. Sophia exited the bus and ran home, going upstairs to her room as the bus moved beyond Taylor's range but still within sight of the next bus stop where Taylor walked back up the hill to Sophia's home. She'd explain to her Dad she just forgot the time while studying at the city Library. Taylor brought in more bugs to investigate the row house when Taylor realized Sophia wasn't there. She sent more bugs inside through vents and up through the walls from cracks in the basement. Sophia's backpack was in the entryway, her clothes were in her room with the tracking bugs still on them, but Sophia herself had vanished. What. The. Fuck?_

When her tormentors approached her table in the cafeteria, Taylor sent her bugs into action.

"Time to go Carrie ..." Taylor whispered softly.


	2. Chapter 2

It seemed like the entire cafeteria turned to pay attention as Emma, Sophia, Madison and their clique approached.

"Oh Taylor, " Emma said condescendingly, "You look like you're g..."

" **EEEP**!"

Madison squeaked as her purse spilled its contents causing her phone, makeup and a running vibrator to rattle on the floor amid a large number of condoms, both packaged and some apparently used.

Taylor silently wondered, _"Did I go overboard with the Alfredo sauce?"_

Many students had already pulled phones out to get video of the scene. Sophia moved to punch Taylor, always a good 'Plan B' in her mind, when to her left a banner unrolled from an overhead light grabbed her attention.

It read: "Thanx fer teh butt-seks frum yo bitchez. Sophia, Yer pimp hand iz STRAWNGG! Lurve, -The Track Team."

Sophia looked angrily to the right towards the Track Team's table where a red dowel on fishing line swung behind the athletes, a few shocked, most openly laughing until they saw Sophia's rage directed at them. Sophia's view of them was obscured as another banner rolled down.

It read: "P.S. Sophia: Eat Shit, Fuck off, and Die in a fire, Thundercunt. Kisses, - The Track Team."

Sophia's snarl of rage was all the incentive the athletes needed to take to their heels.

 _"Bull, meet red flag... Red flag, meet bull."_ Taylor thought.

In the teachers' lounge Mr. Gladly observed the Track Team as they burst from the cafeteria out into the rain with Sophia in hot pursuit and thought _"Ah, such good-spirited hijinks,"_ before returning to his lunch. _"Mmmm, pastrami."_

Madison clutched her now-bottomless purse to her chest and screamed "That's not mine!" at the vibrator rattling among the condoms and the rest of her belongings dumped on the floor in front of her. Madison attempted to kick it away, but only succeeded in scattering the contents of her purse while the vibrator bounced back from a table leg and buzzed at her feet.

Julia whispered, "Emma..."

Emma looked at the clique of girls nervously edging away from Madison as if the petite girls embarrassment was contagious. Laughter from everyone in the Cafeteria assaulted her ears.

Julia tried a little louder, "Emma."

Students took video of Madison frantically gathering the precipitated belongings of her ruined purse. Some wit nudged the buzzing vibrator back in front of Madison who shrieked, "I said that isn't mine!"

"Yeah, hers has Hello Kitty stickers on it," came a voice from the crowd, followed by laughter and a frustrated scream from Madison.

"Emma! Are you OK?!" Julia shouted as she pointed to Emma's leg. "You're bleeding!"

Emma's eyes widened as she bent over and saw the rivulet of red rolling down the inside of her calf to stain her white sock.

 _"About time she noticed,"_ Taylor thought, _"I've had mosquitoes barfing blood and red food coloring under her skirt for ten minutes."_

Emma slipped away as she gazed at her fingers gone red from where she brushed her thigh and abandoned Madison to be the center of attention for the assembled students. Emma beat a retreat through the double doors opposite the ones Sophia had chased the Track Team through and made her way through the deserted corridors to the nearest bathroom to clean up. The door swung shut behind Emma and teams of cockroaches maneuvered pennies into the gap around the door, including several coins which had been placed on train tracks and flattened into wedges.

Sophia body checked the first guy on the track team she caught into a wall while his compatriots fled. "Tell me which of you motherfuckers planned this, Tommy Shoemaker, so I can hand out your beatings properly!"

"I don't know, I didn't do it..."

Rain soaked into her tracksuit as Sophia twisted her fists in the boy's collar and slammed the him into the wall again. "If you didn't do this, then who did?"

"I... I don't..."

"Then round up the rest of those dipshits and find out!" screamed Sophia in the boys face before letting him run after his scapegoat teammates before she angrily strutted back to the cafeteria, her mood as foul as the weather.

Madison piled her belongings into the remains of her purse, the sundered seams showing small cut lengths of thread all along the bottom panel which had ripped way. The petite girl barely kept her emotions under control as she crawled next to a table in order to pull herself to her feet. A kind gentleman extended his hand toward her. _"Some help at last"_ she thought.

Instead of reaching for her hand, her supposed white knight picked up an unopened condom, turned to his friends and said, "Hey... Magnums! I guess the little slut likes 'em big!"

Laughter erupted, and continued as the line got repeated to others. Madison was mortified. Someone dropped the still buzzing vibrator on top of her belongings, rattling against her phone.

"I said that's... Not... MINE!" screamed Madison as she flung the device as far across the cafeteria as she could.

Madison held her belongings close to her chest and attempted to leave with at least some dignity intact.

Her hopes were dashed when some guy raised the vibrator aloft like Excalibur and asked, "If it's not yours, why does it say 'To my Boo-Boo Buttsuck, Love Emma' on the dial?" triggering even more laughter.

Madison broke and ran, tears streaming down her face all the way out of the cafeteria.

Taylor surveyed the riotous cafeteria. No one noticed the bugs responsible for tipping the banners off the light fixtures retreat across the ceiling and into the ventilation system.

Teens were already comparing videos to see who had the best, most embarrassing footage to upload. She would have to watch some of the videos later, since she was sure someone would email a link back to the anonymous account Taylor had used to let everyone know about the "Awsum prank 2-morro at lunch in the cafeteria" she had sent out yesterday. She had even got the blanket invite to that anti-prom thing next Friday which her regular school account hadn't.

Through her bugs Taylor observed Emma still cleaning up in the restroom while the roaches finished their job which left the entire doorjamb wedged full of pennies behind her oblivious former friend.

Taylors bugs also noted how Madison ran down the hall until her phone rang.

Madison slowed to a walk and answered "Hello?"

"Um, is.. is this Madison?"

"Yes, Who is this?"

Madison turned the corner to her locker. Three guys were standing in front of it snickering and the voice came in stereo from her phone and in front of her: "Do you really suck for a buck?"

"WHAT?!" Madison screamed.

The three boys turned to look at Madison, the caller still held one of the many perforated strings of condoms threaded through the vent slits on Madison's locker door.

Madison tore them from the boys grasp. Her phone number, prices and a unique slogan were written on each one. One read: "Threesome Thursdays - Half price."

Her phone rang again. She answered automatically, "Hello?"

"Hi, Boo-Boo Buttsuck? We're inquiring about your discount for groups of ten or more..."

Madison's scream of anguish, punctuated by beeps form her call waiting, echoed through the halls.

 _"Phase One complete: Madison's reputation destroyed. Now for Phase Two,"_ Taylor thought.

Cradling her Art project in her arms in front of her, Taylor strolled towards her next class.

Sophia burst through the double doors on the opposite side of the cafeteria with rainwater dripping off her, stormed over to the track team's table and ripped down one banner, which was actually a painted bedsheet. Scanning the crowd Sophia saw that wimp Taylor point and laugh at her then turn and walk of another set of doors.

 _"No goddamn way fucking Hebert just laughed at ME..."_ Sophia thought, _"I'm gonna kill her."_

Sophia shoved her way through the crowded cafeteria, kicking open the doors to see Hebert with her back to her at the end of the hall, talking to someone around the corner.

Not even looking her way, Taylor flipped off Sophia.

Wet shoes squeaked on the tile floor as Sophia charged towards the skinny girl and landed a punch right in her smug face.

Taylor tumbled from the impact into the connecting hallway, her art project disintegrated as it smashed into the far wall.

"SOPHIA HESS!"

Sophia turned at her shouted name. Standing around the corner were Mrs. Knott and Ms. Tilde, the Art teacher who had just exited the teacher's lounge and had apparently been talking with that wuss Hebert.

 _"She still has the 'Lurve' banner in her hand,"_ thought Taylor as she got to her knees, _"thanks for breaking the evidence chain, dummy."_

"Principal's Office. NOW!" Said Mrs. Knott sternly, then turned to her colleague "Take that poor girl to the Nurse's Office and join me in the office. I'll get the paperwork started."

Sophia felt a sinking sensation in her gut as she patted her pockets . It was missing. Both of them. Her phones were missing.

 _"Oh crap."_


	3. Chapter 3

Amakudari 1.3

Ms. Tilde the Art teacher helped Taylor to the Nurse's Office.

"Let me out!" Emma cried, pounding on the washroom door. Two girls from the outside pulled on the doorknob with all their might, which only forced the pennies to wedge even tighter in the gap around the door.

"Someone go get the Janitor," said Ms. Tilde as they walked past.

Taylor wanted to smile, but the pain and facial swelling from Sophia's punch prevented that. _"It's not a locker, but it's a start."_ she thought.

At the Nurse's office, Taylor was given an icepack saying, "Well, at least it didn't break the skin," and shooed on her way to the office.

Sophia sat, arms crossed and fuming while she waited outside Principal Blackwell's office. She bristled at Taylor's entrance, and angrily glared as the beanpole teenager thanked Ms. Tilde for her assistance.

"So you mentioned paperwork to fill out?" Taylor asked.

"Yes, I've got the fighting report form right here." Mrs. Knott said, "Just signed my part and now Ms. Tilde can sign too."

"Hand that here when you're done with it," said Principal Blackwell as she motioned Sophia and Taylor into her office.

The two teens sat while Principal Blackwell read the report while she walked around her desk.

"This says that you showed Ms. Tilde the work you'd done on your art project so far when Sophia ran up from behind and attacked you."

"Ye.."

"Hey, that skinny bitch flipped me off!" interrupted Sophia.

"I don't care," said Principal Blackwell after she signed the form, "Fighting on school grounds is against the rules."

"But she.."

"What part of 'Don't Care' didn't you hear? No one punches another student in front of two teachers and gets away with it, even if they are ticked off they just got pranked by the entire Track Team." said Principal Blackwell as she pointed at the bedsheet banner Sophia brought with her.

"I have to call my Social Worker." Sophia interjected.

"Obviously. I'm sure she'll agree you've earned in school suspension for all next week and the rest of today."

"But you..."

"No matter who you are you don't get to take out your frustrations on anyone who crosses your path while you're in the middle of a snit fit." Principal Blackwell leaned in close to Sophia and said, "Grow up and stop throwing tantrums like a two year old."

Taylor had never seen this side of Principal Blackwell before and saw the barely constrained anger Sophia had at the teachers' words even as the aggravated teen answered, "Yes Ma'am."

What a difference rock solid evidence made compared to the typical alibis, plausible deniability, and cover stories the Trio provided each other.

The teachers had already left to go teach their classes when Principal Blackwell ushered Sophia and Taylor from her office.

"You better get to class," Principal Blackwell said to Taylor, "and _you_ get to cool your heels over there for a while."

"I need to go look for my lost phones." said Sophia as she rose to her feet.

"No, you're going to wait here until your Social Worker shows up."

"But..."

"Stop arguing. Sit." commanded Principal Blackwell, pointing to an open chair.

Sophia glared daggers at Taylor. Principal Blackwell stood in the doorway to her office and waved the back of her hand at Taylor, shooing her off.

Taylor walked to class and briefly watched as the Janitor pull out a hammer and chisel to release Emma from her trapped condition. _"Best three fifty I've ever spent."_ she thought.

Emma dialed her Father, "Daddy? … I'm trapped in a bathroom at school and the Janitor can't open the door…. …Yes' I'm OK… …No, he tried that… ...No, they've got bars on them... Alright, I'll see you when you get here."

Emma settled in to wait for her rescue, texting.

Taylor felt one of Sophia's phones buzz to life within the walls of Winslow, transported on the backs of a swarm of bugs. Pity she couldn't see anything besides kaleidoscopic blurs through her swarms or she could have replied to Emma's texts with some epic gaslighting, but she didn't know the unlock codes anyway.

Another pity the metal walls of the lockers only had unused half inch round holes for fasteners her swarms had been unable to enlarge. At least they'd chewed through the drywall blocking the holes behind Emma and Madison's lockers to improve what little access there was for later.

Taylor directed the phone-carrying swarms on to their eventual destination just as she arrived late at class. She still held the icepack to her cheek where Sophia had punched her. She appeared understandably distracted as the lesson progressed.

 _"Two down, one to go,"_ thought Taylor while she prepared for Emma's father to arrive.

Even though it pained her, she smiled a slow cruel smile beneath the icepack in anticipation.


	4. Chapter 4

Interlude: Alan Barnes 

Alan Barnes pulled into the Winslow High parking lot. The teachers lot was behind a chainlink fence which left him to park among the student cars, half of which featured body panels held on with duct tape or poorly sanded epoxy repairs somewhere. He felt no guilt at parking diagonally in two spaces in the partially empty lot given he didn't plan to be here for long.

Iridescent streaks from leaking engine oil floated across the wet pavement in the downpour. Alan hustled indoors to get out of the inclement elements. A poster in the window appeared to be printed in reverse until his mind caught up to the paradigm shift required to read it correctly. 'morP'... pretty clever actually. A few familiar faces came into view as he opened the Office door. Emma's friend Sophia and her Social Worker talked with Principal Blackwell.

"…is simply too much for such an offense. Three days is more reasonable."

Principal Blackwell said, "Our school district guidelines are clear, I've already given as much leeway about her extracurricular activities as I can, but the minimum in-school suspension for something like this is one week."

Alan turned to the secretary behind the counter and asked, "Pardon me, my name is Alan Barnes and my daughter Emma said she was trapped in a bathroom and to come get her."

"Oh yeah, today has been insane. I think the janitor is still working on the door. Around the corner and to your left," she said and pointed to the right.

Alan heard banging even before turning the corner. Pennies littered the floor around a man in blue coveralls and leather tool belt as he hammered a chisel in the gap above the restroom door.

"OK, try it now."

A tortured screech preceded a cascade of pennies to the floor as his darling daughter pushed while the janitor pulled the door.

Emma practically screamed "Daddy!" as she leaped into his arms for a hug.

"You OK now, kidlet?"

"Daaaaddyyy… you haven't called me that in years."

"I haven't had to come get you from school in years either." Alan released his daughter from the hug and asked, "So, ready to go?"

"Let me get my things from the locker and we can go. We could even go to lunch so today won't be a total loss."

"No can do, once I drop you at home I'll have to take your mother to the dealership to pick up her car and then it's back to the salt mines for me."

Speakers in the hallway crackled to life _"Attention, would all members of the Track team please come to the office, thank you."_

Bells signaled the end of class and Alan flashed back to his own school years as hordes of teens erupted from classrooms into the hallway.

Teenagers parted around the man in a suit while they chatted, looked down at phones, texted furiously, or even walked to their next class. Alan didn't like the looks some of the students were giving his daughter, not angry but if as in disbelief or overly interested, some pointed and laughed.

They rounded the corner to Emma's locker, or where it should have been but was now hidden under advertisements featuring his daughter defaced with crude graffiti and taped along the entire bank of lockers. Alan used his long reach to grab a page over the heads of the teens crowding between him and the lockers.

A glance at the added rude drawings of anatomy and word balloons with content more appropriate for truck stop bathroom stall walls was all Alan needed to see.

"Hey Emma," said an obnoxious bald boy, "Do you really..."

Alan clapped a heavy hand on the youth's shoulder. " My _DAUGHTER,_ " Alan said in his best courtroom voice, "appreciates your help gathering this _EVIDENCE_ of foul play against her."

He grabbed another boy within arms reach and continued, "Your _HELP_ will be remembered when we find out _WHO_ is to _BLAME_ for such a _VILE_ act."

Alan lightly shoved the skinhead and probable football player towards the lockers and they gathered pages under the lawyers' glare.

After a minute, the boys he'd 'voluntold' to help brought him a stack of ripped out magazine pages and advertising flyers featuring his daughter. He knew it would do no good to ask if anyone saw who did it or waste the Brockton Bay Police Department's time dusting for fingerprints. He was glad to have managed to nip this in the bud.

Still, he salivated at the thought of the wondrous lawsuit he could press on the school district for what happened to his daughter today. Charges of negligence, reckless endangerment, harassment, stalking, assault; upgraded to aggravated assault, denial of freedom, abrogation of movement, premeditation, unlawful imprisonment, conspiracy to imprison, racketeering, failure of _in loco parentis_ , and light treason. He smirked at the memory of that Earth Aleph series one of his interns and shown him.

A chittering of annoyed insects was lost amid the hubbub of students passing by in the halls.

Emma had gathered her things and he said, "OK, let's stop by the Office on our way out, I want to be sure this is handled correctly."

Alan skimmed the vandalized modeling ads featuring his daughter. Some of them had her phone number and a few also had his home number scrawled among the vulgar word balloons in thick marker. He actually looked forward to sitting at home tonight , perusing a reverse phone directory on the internet along with the classroom contact lists he'd kept in his den filing cabinet ever since his kids entered kindergarten a decade ago, and scaring the crap out of whichever pimply faced snot nosed brats called while enjoying a glass of wine. Alan wondered, _"Does red or white wine pair with schadenfreude?"_

Outside the office the assembled members of the Track team stood in a semi-circle around Sophia next to the Coach in the middle of a rant.

"... wants to fess up to this I will use this incident," the Coach roared, gesturing with one of the banners wadded up in his hand, "as a character building opportunity."

"Like an RPG?" whispered a boy as Alan and Emma passed by, to be shushed by his neighbor.

"Today's practice will be running laps, and you will keep running them until you all collapse, or one of you... the guilty party... cracks and confesses."

The Track team's collective moans and cries of protest faded as the door shut behind the two Barnes.

"Anyone who wants to see me privately, I'll be at my desk in the ball cage for the remainder of the day and the rest of us can put in a normal rainy-day practice in the gym," the muffled voice of the Coach carried through the door.

"Is Principal Blackwell in?" asked Alan as he strode towards her door and motioned Emma to sit next to a hangdog looking boy.

"She's on the phone," said the Secretary, "Have a seat and..."

"She'll see me now, thanks." said Alan when he opened the door, confidently not even breaking stride.

"...caught him bending a thick zip-tie around the axle of Mr. Quinlan's car. Now, while not..."

"Principal Blackwell," Alan interrupted and slammed the stack of papers in his hand on her desk, "This is completely unacceptable!"

Principal Blackwell turned in her chair, and said, "Pardon me. I apologize for the interruption, I will have to call you back."

Alan Barnes smugly smirked at how easily he seized the initiative from the petty bureaucrat.

"Tell me WHAT you are..." **CRACK!**

The Lawyer flinched as the experienced teaching professional shot to her feet synchronized with the loud noise.

Principal Blackwell thought, _"The ol' steel-ruler-on-the-desk slap. Works even if they didn't go to Catholic School."_

"MISTER Barnes, get out of my office."

Alan gestured with the stack of scribbled-on advertisements, "THESE were plastered all over my DAUGHTER's..."

An 18 inch steel ruler worked well as an improvised Main Gauche, and even though her days in the University Fencing club were over two decades in the past her point control never wavered a quarter inch away from his nose.

"Your daughter would have been polite enough to knock. Now make an appointment for next week and get out. I have an imbecile with cherry bombs on their way, and I'm not going to waste my come-to-Jesus voice on someone," she tapped Alan on his breastbone, "who should obviously know better."

"You need to..."

"Mister Barnes, I understand. Your daughter is your unique, special snowflake. No one is exactly like her or could ever fill the place she has in your heart. " Principal Blackwell explained while she guided the man to the door. "On the other hand I must deal every day with the blizzard of hundreds of unique special snowflakes of which your daughter is but one."

"Good Day." **SLAM!** the Principal's door shut in his face with an air of finality.

 _"I'd hate to have her on the bench... She's even worse than Judge Ostermark."_ Alan thought.

On the other side of the door Principal Blackwell quietly said, "And like all unique special snowflakes, at room temperature she's just a drip."

As she returned to the thankless, never-ending task of administrating the worst school in the Brockton Bay area she thought, _"I wonder where I packed those old Rapiers or that Epee anyway..."_

Emma drank a diet soda while she waited for her father. She never looked up to the ceiling to see several spiders tip a fluid-filled beetle carapace directly over the open mouth of her bottle, unerringly aimed at a gnat hiding on the bottom of the bottle. The teen model was also oblivious to the other bugs on her, and would only discover the effects of their sabotage later.

Alan made an appointment for early next week, signed his daughter out early and drove home.

"Does that sort of thing go on often?" Alan asked his daughter as he turned the windshield wipers up higher.

"No, not really," Emma said, "I guess everyone went crazy for April Fools Day this year."

"Oh really? Did you see anybody pull a real good one?"

"Well, Madison said Mr. Gladly sat on a whoopie cushion at the beginning of class, and..." gossiped the teenager and her father on the rest of the rainy drive home.

Large muddy puddles on each side of the driveway rippled as Alan pulled up.

"...of a pringles can. They were all wearing matching t-shirts until the teachers made them remove them."

Alan chortled, "They really set that all up? I'll have to see..."

The car lurched in the driveway.

No.

The driveway lurched under the car.

Concrete cracked.

Muddy water geysered up through cracks and out from the sides of the driveway.

The car nosed down.

Emma shrieked.

Car lurched forward.

Everything went white.


	5. Chapter 5

Amakudari 1.4

A bell rang which signaled the end of school. Sophia bolted from detention and ran down the stairs, heedless of the people she bumped or shoved out of her way. She had to see if anyone had turned in her phones yet.

She ignored the glares from the Track team members she passed. She probably spent more time with them than anyone else in the school, so they should have known better than to prank her.

"You suck, Sophia."

She angrily turned to face Jesse, a Senior on the Track team. "Up yours, Jesse."

"Shut it. I'm banned from Debate Regionals in Boston this weekend because of you."

"Hey, if you guys hadn't pulled..."

"Guess what? We didn't. Those 'Yuudai has a huge penis' t-shirts were our idea. I even gave out twenty of them to homeless guys in his neighborhood."

"If you didn't do it, then who did?"

"I don't give a shit. You just screwed my college application transcripts with your whining. Coach is stubborn enough to run us in the rain until we all catch a cold thanks to you and your thin skinned complaining."

Sophia angrily retorted, "Someone's gotta pay for..."

"For what? Getting your panties in a twist? You keep missing practices and track meets and Coach lets it slide like I've never seen. You were barely even on my radar until you crapped all over us outside the office. You're a only sophomore, do you think the next two years are going to be all sweetness and light after you threw your teammates under the bus?"

"Your threatening me isn't going to..."

Jesse leaned in close and whispered, "That's not a threat. _THIS_ is a threat: All the guys on the Track team will only whiz into bottles and we'll pay some random freshman to dump it in your gym bag, in your locker, and on your head until your eyebrows grow ammonia crystals. Your new nickname will be MC Pissy Pants. The instant you wear anything yellow so the stains won't show we'll switch over to bleach."

"There's no way..."

'See the ends of the hallway?"

Sophia looked left and then looked right and watched as Varsity Track team members raised bottles of what probably wasn't apple juice.

" _THAT'S_ a threat. See the difference?"

Sophia wanted to put a crossbow bolt in this douchebags brain so badly right now. But there was no way she could cover it up. He had no gang ties, was actually on the Honor Roll, and that report for fighting was making its' way to the PRT right now. She couldn't even kick him in the nuts and claim he grabbed a boob since he already had witnesses.

"What do you want from me?"

"Like I said, you weren't even on my radar until today. Track team varsity hazing doesn't start until the end of Junior Year. You just moved yourself up a little early. Every member of the Track team will get a chance to haze you, even the underclassmen after what you pulled. And if you go crying to Coach again then we'll double down."

"That's not fair!"

"Think about how fair it is for all the rest of us who didn't do anything to have to run laps in the rain. You'll probably get off lightly, stolen lunches, ex-lax in your hot chocolate, the occasional hotfoot, a rough couple of weeks. Unless you've managed to piss off your teammates before this and now they're in it for payback of all past offenses and decide to flush a cherry bomb while you're sitting on the throne or something, you'll be fine."

Sophia thought, _"Oh crap, crap, crap."_


	6. Chapter 6

Amakudari 1.5

Taylor caught the first bus home in good spirits. Fading into the distance behind her waterlogged athletes exchanged _bon mots_ of 'Sophia sucks' as they passed each other on the soggy track. When the Coach called out 'Sprint Lap!' noises of complaint arose from the entire track at once. After the Coach hollered, "My Grandma can run faster than that... and she's dead!" Taylor's swarm listened as exchanges between runners evolved to 'Kill Sophia' as the bus left the school behind out of her range.

Madison ran home almost two hours ago, but Taylor was able to have her swarm slip a new perforated roll of condoms into the petite girls' locker after she left. Filling them out last night had been fun with all the celebrity references; Richard Gere, Rod Stewart, Danny Thomas… she hadn't used politicians or she'd have been paralyzed by the possibilities. Later next week she'd go for one geographic location added to one mundane activity and bam! instant sexual position euphemism. Her favorite resulting 'Mad Lib' combination so far had been the _Appalachian Pre-flight Checklist._

Emma left not much later with her Dad as expected. Taylor was disappointed she had been denied the chaos those defaced modeling advertisements would have caused, but there was still a stack of twenty or so hidden in the vents above for her swarms to distribute Monday morning. It was too bad she couldn't risk being there in person to see the trap get sprung when she got home, but the bus should pass by close enough for her to get a sense of the aftermath.

And as for Sophia…

 _It took a solid week until she tracked down where Sophia lived. Taylor got on the bus a stop before Winslow, and hid while Sophia got on and stayed busy on her phone almost the whole time. Then she pulled out a second phone and put it away after a glance. Sophia exited the bus and ran home, going upstairs to her room as the bus moved beyond Taylor's range but still within sight of the next bus stop where Taylor walked back up the hill to Sophia's home. She'd explain to her Dad she just forgot the time while studying at the city Library. Taylor brought in more bugs to investigate the row house when Taylor realized Sophia wasn't there. She sent more bugs inside through vents and up through the walls from cracks in the basement. Sophia's backpack was in the entryway, her clothes were in her room with the tracking bugs still on them, but Sophia herself had vanished. What. The. Fuck?_

 _The only person in the house was Sophia's mother in the kitchen. Bugs from garbage cans in the alley behind verified there was no one there either. Maybe Sophia had taken a bicycle, like that one chained up to the utility pipes. But why would she change clothes first? More and more bugs poured out of the ventilation ducts and into Sophia's room as Taylor made her way back to the bus stop Sophia had taken. She sat on the bench, determined to get to the bottom of all this._

 _A line of roaches from the floor to the ceiling marched carapace to carapace around Sophia's room. Squadrons of flies inspected every shelf on the bookcase, the light fixture in the ceiling, the desk and beneath the bed. Spiders investigated the hanging clothes in the closet and shoes beneath. Nothing. The roaches finished circumnavigating the walls and crossed the ceiling and found nothing of significance._

 _But really, what did she expect? A bust of a famous composer whose head flipped back on a hinge to expose a red button that, when pressed, opened a sliding panel which revealed a brass pole labeled 'To The Bitchcave' where the Bitchmobile sat next to the Bitchcomputer scanning the skies for the Bitchsignal? As if._

 _Flies on the window found it locked, so if Sophia had exited through them, she wasn't coming back in the same way. Besides, how would she have locked it behind her? Taylor shook her head. Sophia's absence was distracting her from the task at hand: finding something Sophia regarded above all else to destroy as thoroughly as they had done to her Mothers' flute._

 _The clothes Sophia had worn that day lay haphazardly on top of a pile of others on the floor next to her closet. The light in the closet was still on, Taylor could tell by the warmth of the light bulb, but the door was closed. There was an access panel leading up into the attic, but no stepladder in the closet or folding ladder in the attic itself. Just plastic bins of Christmas decorations and junk in boxes, most likely. The closet held clothing hung with care, summer weight dresses shoved to one end with a Halloween costume and unkempt piles of shoes below._

 _The dresser contained no surprises, no taped envelope behind the drawers like at Madison's house, even if it had only held her passport and some foreign currency. Track and Field trophies vied for space on the top of the bookcase, but the shelves were relatively bare below. Guess Sophia wasn't much of a reader._

 _It was weird, in a way. Nothing in Sophia's room seemed overly personalized. None of the track trophies were displayed with pride like Emma's certificates of achievement or modeling portfolio had been, or the stuffed animal collection which threatened to overflow Madison's bed. The desk was barren save for the two phone chargers. Why two phones? Taylor realized she hadn't really picked up on that detail earlier on the bus. But while there wasn't much there in Sophia's room, what_ _ **wasn't**_ _there that was also interesting. Nothing for relaxation, no music or hobby materials. Even less makeup than Taylor kept in her own bureau._

 _Taylor had caught Sophia buying steroids from that Merchant under the bleachers two weeks ago. She hadn't gone back to buy more, so where were they? Sophia's mother was still in the kitchen, so Taylor's bugs had investigated the bathroom, and there was no sign of those little glass bottles and plastic wrapped syringes anywhere. Not even in the separate bathroom off the master bedroom. Had she missed something in her search of Sophia's room?_

 _Taylor used teams of bugs to pry open drawers so her swarms could search inside. Too bad they couldn't relay sight as more than a kaleidoscope of light and motion or she would try to read some of the papers she found in the nightstand. Would Sophia have hidden something in the walls behind an electrical outlet? Since she didn't want to betray her investigations with the smell of immolated insects, Taylor directed her swarms down inside the walls from the attic._

 _Taylor found the steroids and the needles along with many empty bottles in the space above the door frame between the walls. But the surprising part was the insulation hadn't been disturbed in the attic until her bugs burrowed through, and there were no electrical boxes that high. How the hell did they get there? There were other things resting on the fire blocks about halfway up the interior walls too. A phone. What felt like stacks of bills. Arrows._

 _Arrows? What the hell? No, wait… they were too short for arrows… Bolts? The answer broke through into reality as her swarm discovered a crossbow inside the vacant space in the wall between the closet and Sophia's room. Taylor felt her gut turn cold as dread overcame her. She sent bugs back into the closet and further investigated what she had at first thought was just a Halloween costume. The integrated mask eliminated all doubt. Who else would have a hag mask and could move things inside walls without a trace?_

 _Sophia was Shadow Stalker._

 _No goddamn way… it really_ _ **is**_ _the Bitchcave._

 _The two phone chargers, one old style, one new, plus the phone hidden between the walls. Why else keep the old phone unless it's for stuff not allowed on a phone for professional use? For cape use? The unused costume was made of a lighter material, probably a summer weight fabric. Now the sequence of events on the bus made sense. Sophia got a call from the PRT, suited up and ghosted away through the roof._

 _This is why Emma kicked me to the curb, Taylor realized. Why pal around with your old childhood friend when you could hang out with a real parahuman instead? Emma's parents had to know as well, especially after the locker. It made her want to undermine the foundation of her former friends' house now instead of just the driveway like she had been doing for over two weeks already. But that would be too noticeable. Taylor had lured moles to dig tunnels after the worms under her control. It had taken weeks and had been hard enough, especially guiding them to redirect runoff from the downspouts to underneath the driveway where decomposed wood from the greenbelt would sell the illusion of an old stump covered over by some lazy contractor and finally rotted away under torrential rains. On her morning runs she was still steering the moles to dig after tasty earthworms in order to expand and deepen the network of tunnels and just waiting for a large enough storm to flood it all. Any contractor brought in to fix it wouldn't care about the whys and wherefores, they'd just see a payday and a good story to tell their buddies._

 _Taylor glanced down at the duffel bag at her feet. Hundreds of Black Widow spiders she'd brought from home to weave silk all day rested inside. They may be all out of silk, but they're still full of unused venom. She could kill Sophia in three seconds flat with that many poisonous spider bites. Reaching out with her swarm, she wondered how many insects she could bring here, and how fast they could skeletonize Sophia once she was down._

 _Taylor broke herself out of that train of thought. If she killed anyone it would instantly mark her as a villain. It was the entire reason she didn't just attack her bullies with millions of bees. No direct attacks with insects, or secondary effects which could only come from bugs, only tertiary effects which could have another plausible source. She tried to envision herself as a Ward, doing heroic deeds alongside… Hell, she couldn't even finish that thought, what made her think being a cape on a team with Sophia would be any different? Maybe the PRT didn't know? Maybe she could gather evidence and get Sophia kicked out…_

 _As if they would give up one of their own for an unknown, just like that. Even if they knew Sophia was the superbitch Taylor knew she was, it would still be a case of 'the devil you know is better than the devil you don't.' Oh crap, what if the Wards_ _liked_ _Sophia? Then they'd close ranks around her, even if Taylor brought all the evidence she had to bear. Why would they pick me over her if they had the choice? Give up an experienced crime fighter with a fearsome reputation for a girl with bug control powers? Yeah, right._

 _Taylor felt the cold from sitting outside for so long and realized the sun had set while she'd been absorbed investigating Sophia's room. She was putting too much thought into what-ifs. She knew that the school administration was covering for her activities as Ward, but there were some pieces which didn't quite fit in that simplistic point of view. Why the 3rd phone and cash hidden in the wall with the crossbow and sharp-tipped bolts? Taylors stomach rumbled. She didn't want to leave now, so she had her bugs bring several bills off of the stack out through the walls as well as an empty steroid bottle to an exterior vent she could easily reach when no one was looking. To camouflage the missing money, Taylor slipped a few bills to the next level down past the fireblock inside the wall. If Sophia even investigated it would look like some had slipped down the wall accidentally._

 _The bills were twenties and fifties, so Taylor felt no qualms about finding a Diner nearby and getting something to eat while she continued her surveillance of Sophia's house. She had enough change to call her Dad at work and tell him she'd be home late after a group from school wanted to go to see an Earth Aleph movie, and not to worry since she'd catch a ride back with them. She'd tell him it was all fake looking explosions and nausea inducing shaky camera work. Actually she'd take a cab after she finished here, but Danny bought her excuse and she settled down at a booth to order._

 _Hours passed as Taylor, under the cover of doing homework, plotted and planned over tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich, with coffee and an occasional dessert to make up for monopolizing the table all night. She was glad she'd figured out early on how to listen through her bugs as the quality of her education at Winslow had improved when she could effectively audit every class at once. She used that ability now to listen in on the mundane domesticity of Sophia's house even as she planned the girls downfall._

 _Sophia's hidden phone, cash reserves and weapons showed strategic planning, and to just run straight into prepared defenses usually didn't turn out well for the attackers, historically speaking. She probably had a set of backup gear at school as well. Now Taylor just had to figure out how to turn those assets into liabilities, or remove them from consideration altogether and pull an end run around Sophia's Maginot Line. Too many variables to consider right now, but she'd have to plan out Sophia's moves and likely counter-moves and have contingencies prepared for all of them._

 _Taylor gave up the notion that taking down Sophia would be as easy as going after Madison's quest for popularity through infamy. Turn her from 'That girl Madison' to 'That girl Madison_ _ **who...**_ _' it didn't matter what the rumor mill spit out, just as long as the petite girls' reputation imploded. Emma was harder, because what do you get the girl who has everything? Money (Okay, Daddy's Money), looks, fame, a career as a model, what could undermine that? Maybe get a tick with lyme disease and..._

 _No, wait... Nothing. Literally nothing. Nothing_ _ **would**_ _be better than that. Put yellow food coloring in her diet sodas to stain her teeth. Drip blue food coloring down spider silk to stain sleep bags underneath her eyes. Eyedrops in her food to give her the runs. Mix salt into the sugar she put on her breakfast cereal to make it taste odd. Make aphids bite through one follicle at a time so she thinks she's losing her hair. Slip MSG into everything so she's constantly thirsty. Work her up into a panic about her health with no doctor able to find the reason until a few empty dropper bottles here, some printed pages of how to fake disease symptoms there and poor widdle Emma's desperate bid for attention comes to light. The more she denies, the more pathetic her perceived antics will seem. Enjoy your Munchausen's Syndrome, Emma. You'll deserve every second of it._

 _Sophia was a tougher nut to crack. She had support at school from her friends, the Track Team, and school administration which knows she's a Ward, where she also got support from her teammates, the Protectorate, the PRT administration and her own powers. Too many support systems to provide for her, so they'd all need to come down at the same time._

 _From what Taylor had been able to learn about the school administration by listening in with her bugs and observing how other bullies, gang issues and everyday problems got dealt with, they only wanted to maintain the status quo and most likely the PRT was the same way. The more waves Sophia generated, the more paperwork there would be, and like her Dad had often complained there were some people who were their own worst enemy and eventually caused more trouble than they were worth. Taylor just had to figure out how to get Sophia into generating that many "actionable" problems on her own, or with a little behind the scenes help._

 _In the Psychology class her bugs had helped her audit, they had gone through a unit on how reality TV shows intentionally generate conflict, and how some already existing groups fracture along minor points of contention which got blown totally out of proportion when exposed to stress. That would involve getting the Track Team or the Wards to turn on Sophia, or more likely getting her to turn on them. Damn, this was going to be a whole lot of work, Taylor realized._

 _The key would be to keep hitting all three of them from unexpected angles at the same time so that they abandon each other to focus on their own problems. But to have it all happen in a vacuum only to her three main tormentors would be like putting a neon bulls-eye on them, she would be just as visible in the glow. Therefore Taylor would need to arrange more cover for her own activities. One man running down the middle of the street attracts attention, but who would notice the same man in the middle of a marathon? That gave her a time limit: one month. One month to set up all the dominoes to fall and crush Emma, Madison, and Sophia to be lost among all the other pranks pulled on April Fools Day._

 _It was almost midnight when Taylor detected a tick as it dropped in and out of her senses above the rooftops where no tick should be. It headed for the row house she had investigated so thoroughly, and lost contact one last time on the roof to regain it inside Sophia's closet. Final confirmation that Sophia was Shadow Stalker as she hung up her costume, unbolted a security bar, and headed to take a shower. So easy to drop venomous bugs on her while she was helpless and deal with the problem permanently, and also get sent to jail for the same duration._

 _She gathered her belongings, left a nice tip with Sophia's money and called for a cab to drop her off close to home. Taylor thought, "I've got my ex-friend's fake illnesses to plan, slut shaming Madison to arrange, Sophia's cape life to destroy and the Track Team to frame for it; I'm swamped." She really needed to stop re-watching "The Princess Bride" so often..._

The bus turned a corner which broke Taylor from her memories. Emma's house was barely within range for her bugs to pick out the tow truck out front and the expensive sedan with deployed airbags nose down in the collapsed driveway. Floating chunks of rotten wood mixed in nearby puddles along with a few drowned moles provided a simple, obvious, and completely wrong narrative for the so-called accident. 

Investigating further it seemed Alan and Emma had to climb out the sunroof after their airbags deployed. And right now Emma was in a nice hot shower while her parents dealt with the repercussions of her bitchitude. A few bugs heard the shriek as Emma looked down at the puddle of warm water lapping over her feet to see a wad of red hair clogging the drain. Not even two percent of the hair on her head, but a little from all over, just enough to freak the redhead out. That and the gradually yellowed teeth should make her former friend demand to go to the doctor, only to find nothing wrong. A little visit later tonight for the fake bags under her eyes and Emma would waste the weekend going to see doctors with the manufactured symptoms to cloud the issue.

The skies cleared up as her bus got to her stop. Taylor walked home with a spring in her step she hadn't felt in a long, long time. She resolved to put on her costume and make tonight her first official night out as a cape.

Taylor thought, _"After all, what's the worst that could happen?"_


	7. Chapter 7

Interlude: PRT HQ

Upon return to her cubicle, the Ward's Social Worker scanned Sophia's fighting report into the system, flagged it as a potential probationary period violation for Shadow Stalker and emailed it to Director Piggot.

She'd tried her best to get the in-school suspension reduced, but they had Shadow Stalker's civilian identity dead to rights with actionable information.

Punching another kid in front of two teachers?

Talk about failing the intelligence test.

Then she spent the next hour going over Wards paperwork, changing regulations, and new: which was usually synonymous with unnecessary, Youth Guard mandates. New costume compliance revision dated March 26, 2011: Specifications of improper swimwear. New costume compliance revision dated March 28, 2011: All female Wards skirt lengths to be worn no more than four inches above the knee due to increase in paparazzi activity. New costume compliance revision dated March 28, 2011: Revocation of previous Visor Tint Restrictions for all West Coast Protectorate capes and PRT Squads due to ineffectiveness of Blue-Green Laser scans. New costume compliance revision dated March 30, 2011: All female Wards skirt lengths to be worn a minimum of five inches above the knee due to Gully getting snagged on a fire hydrant.

The next item in her inbox was a new Youth Guard mandate regarding secret identities for Wards and scheduled social functions.

Apparently a Cape Mom in Atlanta threw a hissy-fit that her daughter had a patrol scheduled the same night as Cotillion.

 _"What the fuck is Cotillion?"_ she thought.

Turns out it was just a fancy name for a school dance.

She browsed through a dozen pages of informational obfuscation to mine the small nuggets of meaning the author couldn't have hidden more completely if they tried.

Protectorate must show proof that all Wards have attended a school dance once per school trimester, or submit to on-premises Youth Guard oversight of the 'authenticity of their collective academic social experience.'

Except Brockton Bay schools work on the Semester system, so in order to be in compliance they'd have to go to one in... three weeks. She pulled up the school calendar.

Too late to crash the mixer at Immaculata tonight, and it looks like they just missed 'Spring Fling' last week, and 'Tolo' is three weeks out...

 _"_ _Wait, there's that event next Friday, and it's an all-district invite. Great! Shadow Stalker could attend as well."_

She scheduled all the Wards to have Friday, April 8th off and make them go, with 'Tolo' as a fallback to catch whoever blew off the first opportunity.

Up next, a twenty page 'summary' of two paragraphs from a daily activity report concerning an email titled Re: Young Buck snorting pixie sticks.

 _"What's that quote? 'Fantastic cosmic powers, tiny, tiny brains…' I guess teenage stupidity blossoms even under Eidolon's watchful gaze."_ she thought as she drafted a memo to Maintenance to remove all powdered sugar products from vending machines before Clockblocker heard about this.

On her desk, the phone rang.

No mystery who was calling, since her co-workers would either drop by or just send an email.

She answered the phone, "Yes, Director?"

Clockblocker lounged in the break area with his laptop before his scheduled patrol, checked his official PHO account, and wondered why he'd been sent links to the same video file three or four times.

He put it through security scans before opening, no way he was gonna get yelled at for making _that_ mistake again.

The attached note said, _"My fave is the girl who goes aggro at 1:53, it gets really good after then."_

Sophia stormed over to Kid Win on Console duty. She said "No questions, just track my PRT phone, OK?"

He complied since Sophia looked annoyed enough already. "Aren't you supposed to be at Track Practice right now?" Kid Win asked.

Sophia swatted the teenage Tinker in the back of the head, "You always ignore the 'No' part of 'No Questions'? It's complicated. Just track it, 'kay?"

Kid Win pinged her phone and said, "It's inside Winslow High. You lost your PRT phone?!"

"No shit, Sherlock. Can you tell me where inside?"

Kid Win pulled up Fire Department architectural records, and pointed to his best guess for the location of the triangulated signal.

 _"That's the hallway where my locker is..."_ she thought. _"Oh crap, did I just put them there and forget?"_

Sophia glanced at the time.

 _"_ _Maybe I can run there and back before anyone…"_

Overhead speakers blared, "Shadow Stalker, report to the Director's office immediately."

After Sophia left Dennis laughed like a hyena until he could no longer breathe. He stumbled over to the console still cackling.

"Chris, you have gotta see this one, it's been put to music..." and pressed play.

The Wards Social Worker stood off to one side of Director Piggot's desk.

Sophia knew she was in 'damage control' mode.

 _"_ _What had that PR asshole told her to do if a reporter or something cornered her?"_ Sophia tried to remember, _"Don't volunteer info, say only short yes or no type answers, give 'em nowhere to go."_

The next half hour blurred together as she tried to explain the fighting report in front of Piggot: So you got pranked by the track team. Yes. Then you chased them down as seen in **_this_** video to extract revenge. Yes. Then you returned to the scene of the crime and removed evidence. What? The banner. Yes. Then you left the cafeteria, ran down and punched a girl. Yes. Is she on the track team? No. Then why did you punch her? Um... You do realize this isn't reflecting well on you? ...yes...

Sophia left the office feeling chewed up and spit out from all of Piggot's lecturing.

Since all the activity had happened in her civilian identity, most of the punishment would fall on her there too.

Forcing her to patrol from now on with a Ward or Protectorate member who could keep up with her shadow assisted leaps technically wasn't a punishment, but it sure cramped her style.

The worst part was the last ten minutes breaking down all the 'should-haves.'

Should have reported it to school administration, should have talked with the Track Team instead of chasing them, should have left the fucking banner calling her a 'Thundercunt' hanging there for everyone to see, and on and on and on with the should haves.

 _"_ _Fat bitch even said I should have run in the rain with Track Team? Seriously, screw those assholes."_

Sophia's train of thought was interrupted when she entered the Wards room by Dennis, as usual.

Dennis pressed play and fast paced guitar music started to blare from the laptop.

Cyclic chanting joined the guitar and Clockblocker joined in with the melody.

"Nuh na na Na~ na na Na~uh~…"

"THUNDER!"

Sophia watched video of Madison's purse spill open, "Turn it off Dennis", she said.

"THUNDER!"

A closeup of the first banner as it unrolled filled the screen.

"No way, I just started it."

"THUNDER!"

Video of some old cartoon of a guy who could give Browbeat a run for his money in the beefcake department held a sword in the air and flashed back and forth with footage of motherfucking Kenny Eastman with that damn vibrator in practically the same pose.

"I said turn it off Dennis…"

"YOU'VE BEEN…"

"Wait, wait… here's the best part…."

The second banner unrolled intercut with several angles of Sophia's snarling face to end with a still image of her bordered by the final word on the banner underneath.

"…THUNDERSTRUCK!"

Sophia lunged at the redheaded jokester.

"That's it, now you're gonna…"

Clockblocker froze her and took a picture of Sophia's snarling face identical to the paused video in the laptop held up beside her.

"Oh yeah, that one's a keeper."

Kid Win said, "You do realize when she unfreezes there's a shallow grave in the woods with your name on it, right?'

"Yeah, but I'll be out on patrol by then and she'll have to take over Console duty from you."

Clockblocker checked his email one last time before he closed his laptop.

"Hey, y'know if the vending machine has any pixie sticks?"


	8. Chapter 8

Gaiatsu 2.1

It was after midnight by the time she had the opportunity to sneak out of her house for the first time in costume.

Taylor decided to jog into a relatively familiar area near the Docks, graffiti proclaiming it ABB territory.

Over the next hour she scouted with swarms of bugs to help her remain unseen, avoiding groups of drunks wandering between bars and keeping to the shadows wherever possible.

Taylor detected a house full of drugs, judging by the reactions of her bugs, as people repackaged a shipment of drugs for distribution.

She climbed up a fire escape of a nearby building to get an overview of the area, bending almost in half as she crept up to the edge of the roof, careful to make as little noise as possible as her feet padded across the tarpaper.

Taylor crouched behind the brickwork and planned how to takedown a group with lots of guns

She wondered if maybe she had bit off more than she could chew as a second van drove up and three more ABB members got out.

Her bugs overheard radio chatter about incoming hostiles, a call for backup.

From out of nowhere a loud engine roared as what looked like two long nose semi trucks stuck back to back covered with welded on armor plates drove up over the lawn, the business end of a turret on the hood of the vehicle broke through a window of the ABB safe house and fired.

Windows all over the house exploded outwards.

A man holding a knife with bandoliers of grenades strapped across his chest suddenly appeared right next to Taylor, which caused her to flinch.

Taylor got kicked in the ribs where she crouched on the roof, slashed across her throat by Oni Lee's knife.

She rolled with the momentum of his attacks and flopped down the fire escape, dazed and confused.

 _"_ _I'm going to die,"_ Taylor thought as she scrambled for her pepper spray, her throat intact but bruised under the weave of her costume.

She sensed bugs move without her control gathering towards a central point.

Maggots on pizza boxes merged with rotting vegetables, broken electronics, plastic bags and bottles as Mush formed a hulking trash body around himself in the alley below.

Oni Lee advanced on her with his knife raised, she doused his mask with a long blast of pepper spray and he disintegrated in a rain of ash.

Taylor silently berated herself for being caught napping and sent out swarms from where she'd hidden them under bushes and in drains to be ready for her call to action.

She tracked everyone in the area with bugs, one soaked to the skin Merchant who carried a large wrench in one hand flicked his other wrist which caused a mud puddle to leap into the face of an ABB gang member carrying a rifle, blinded before he got cracked across the back of the head with the wrench.

Moist set to work opening a fire hydrant with his wrench as the battle raged around the drug house.

Another clone of Oni Lee advanced on the Merchants near the ABB safe house, Skidmark's arm swung with a bowling motion and a blue stripe of force flared beneath the teleporting assassin which knocked him back into ABB members by a panel van.

The roar of engines filled the air as Squealer's eight wheeled vehicle reversed away from the building, heavy chains threaded through blown out windows ripped open the entire wall and Merchants scrambled up and over the wreckage to get inside.

Oni Lee brawled with Mush. Taylor used the opportunity and transferred maggots from old pizza boxes comprising Mush's trash body onto Oni Lee. _"At least I'll be able to track him now,"_ she thought.

The assassin's knife sliced through the animated trash to little effect, until Oni Lee punched into the excavated scar garbage exoskeleton up to his elbow and left a grenade behind.

Mush pivoted and threw a mass of compacted detritus towards a group of ABB gangers taking cover behind a car which then exploded as the assassin's grenade went off.

Taylor assessed the battlefield, gang color emblazoned ABB members exchanged fire with Merchants of all types as Oni Lee clones appeared and disappeared defending against the Merchants raid.

But even four or five Oni Lee clones could overcome just how much the ABB was outnumbered by the Merchants and pinned by suppressive fire from Squealers' wheeled monstrosity.

Skidmark created a blueshifted zone which threw Oni Lee flat against wall, only to have another Oni Lee clone appear to the left of the Merchant leader, his knife pulled back ready to strike.

Taylor dive bombed Oni Lee's face with a collection of flies, mosquitoes and moths, which forced him to step back into the blueshifted zone and get slammed into the wall on top of the first Oni Lee clone held off the ground.

A third Oni Clone teleported to Skidmarks right side, this time swarms clotheslined Oni Lee with spider silk rope attached to silk drogue chutes improvised from two spare pieces of silk fabric which pulled him in again to land on top of the previous two clones.

Moist finally opened the fire hydrant with a lunge against his large wrench and twisted his hands in the air which redirected the spray of water at yet another Oni Lee clone to get knocked back into blueshift zone and add to the barnacle of bodies in the center of the wall.

All four Oni Lee clones were thoroughly hosed by Moist, which incidentally knocked off most of the maggots to leave thin ashy mud behind as the ABB cape fled the scene.

Taylor sensed those remaining maggots appear and disappear as Oni Lee teleported away before they were beyond her range to detect.

Bugs returned her silk line and drogue chutes to her as she stabbed an epipen in a downed ABB ganger who struggled to breathe.

"Hey, thanks... WHOA, hey baby, remember that bad trip I had from the brown herbal ecstasy? You didn't slip me any of that again, didja?"

Squealer said "Naw, I'm saving that for Easter."

Skidmark turned to Taylor, "You saved us a buncha hassle. Telepor-tard's a pain in the ass to deal with."

Mush reformed his torso, a drug ravaged face peeking out. "You a rogue or what?"

"Naw, just look at that custom outfit, she's goin' the merc route, obviously." Squealer said while she pulled folded bills secured by a rubber band from her cleavage, "Call that a retainer to NOT work for the ABB, or whatever."

Taylor caught the slightly sweaty bundle of money and tried to say something, but the impact of Oni Lee's knife across her throat earlier made talking more difficult than she expected.

Skidmark said, "So, whadda we call you? Swarm girl? Oh, hey… how 'bout Fly Girl like them dancers on that old TV show? Or Bug girl… Bug Buggy Buggerson, Bugfuck…."

Skidmark's face lit up with a lopsided smile.

Taylor thought, _"Oh hell no."_

She directed the closest flying bugs directly down the Merchant leader's throat.

"That's it! Yer Bu…*kawff*"

…TERfly," Taylor said forcefully, her painful throat disguising her voice, "Call me Butterfly."

Mush asked confusedly, "Like the knife?" as Skidmark hacked up a lung.

Moist wrenched the fire hydrant closed and asked, "Ain't butterflies got wings?"

Taylor gestured with the folded bills, "Hey, I'm saving up."

Skidmark guffawed, as if that was the funniest thing he'd ever heard, before he turned and barked orders to the Merchants who had finished loading their plunder into Squealer's vehicle. "See which o' these assholes got keys to any of these cars. Waste not, fuckin' want not."

Squealer pulled out another stack of bills and a pen from a hip pocket of her denim cutoffs, "Tell you what, if you see any other Tinkers out and about call me and let me know where."

"Um, why?"

"Y'see, Tinkers get inspired when they can paw over another Tinker's stuff. How d'you think Armsmaster came up with that super-cycle of his? By copying one of **_my_** designs, that's how."

Taylor looked incredulously at the welded Frankenstein of a vehicle behind the Tinker and said, "I'm not going to fight any Heroes…."

"…and I'm not asking you to. Just call this number," Squealer pointed to the phone number she'd scribbled on the top bill of the second stack of money she handed Taylor, "and I'll handle the rest. Any Tinker, even Leet, just call and you'll get double what we paid you tonight, or more."

"That's all?"

"That's all."

Skidmark picked up something near a fallen ABB gang member and tossed it to the ground in front of her and said, "OK, Butterfly… here's yer namesake, catch you around."

Taylor picked up the folding blade and tucked it into her storage compartment beneath her armor along with the cash.

Merchants drove off in former ABB cars and vans or piled back into the ramshackle vehicle which roared off into the distance before the night abruptly dropped into silence which left Taylor alone amid the aftermath of her first cape fight.

The sound of approaching sirens broke her from her reverie.

Taylor jogged few blocks away until she sensed no people with her bugs and was sure no one had followed her so she felt it was safe to turn towards home.

She had made it almost halfway home before she stopped dead in her tracks with a shudder at a horrible thought.

 _"_ _Holy shit, did I just join the Merchants?"_


	9. Chapter 9

**Gaiatsu 2.2**

Taylor moved a load of laundry from the washer into the dryer before she walked downstairs dressed in a turtleneck and baggy jeans to greet her father Saturday morning.

Danny looked up from the paper and his cup of coffee and said, "You're up late. No jog this morning?"

Taylor cleared her throat and said in a scratchy voice, "I must've caught something last night..." and continued the thought, _"...like a knife to the neck."_

Danny distractedly returned to reading the paper. "I've got a couple of job leads I need to follow up on down at the Union hall, could mean work for thirty guys, so you're on your own for today."

"OK, I'll be fine."

The regular morning route continued and with one last side-hug Danny went to work and she was left to her own devices.

Taylor flopped down on the couch with her 'Hero' notebook and began an after action forensic of her first night out.

The Good: Having spiders make lengths of silk rope turned out to be useful, she should prepare a lot more pre-made lengths inside the back of her shawl or under the skirt of her costume to join up on the fly. Once she'd maced Oni Lee she had placed bugs on all the guns to know where they pointed, the best armor is not getting hit in the first place, after all.

She ran her fingers through her hair and discovered a large scab, probably from when Oni Lee knocked her down the fire escape.

The Bad: Injured by Oni Lee, maybe add a drawstring hood to her shawl? Transportation was also a problem. Since she was too young for a car or even a scooter maybe a bicycle could fill that role. She should also use the leftover squares of silk to make covers for running shoes since jogging everywhere in just the stocking feet of her costume sucked. Also she was so damn thirsty when she got home, she'd have to modify her mask to at least be able to drink something or risk keeling over of heat exhaustion once summer arrived.

She went to the kitchen to get a glass of water and paused to look at her reflection in a mirror on her way back.

Taylor yanked the collar of her turtleneck down and grimaced at the purple bruise on her neck just starting to turn yellow at the edges, then returned to her notes.

The Ugly: Knife to the throat. Add something like corset stays for greater protection? Guns, again. Need to do more than passively avoid them, wrap the triggers in silk to prevent them from firing in the first place. Awareness, as she was completely caught off guard by the appearance of Oni Lee. If she kept curtains of gnats, mites, and no-see-ums at concentric circles around her, she'd get early warning about Oni Lee or others next time. Or, would that literally paint a bulls-eye on wherever she hid? It was something to consider at least, and might even be a good misdirection tactic. Maybe a 3D grid of small bugs instead? She should also look into some hand-to-hand training since getting whacked across the shins with a broom handle by Sophia didn't count as combat experience at all. The shin, forearm, elbow and knee pads she'd added to the silk costume had been useful when she tumbled down the fire escape to get away from Oni Lee, though.

She wrote down all the details she could remember of the capes she had met and their powers while she sat on the couch. Just because she fell in with the Merchants in common cause against Oni Lee that was no guarantee they'd go easy on her in her Hero career, and she'd need to brainstorm how to deal with the four clones he'd had in one place at the same time, if that actually was his upper limit.

The dryer buzz from upstairs signaled the end of its cycle and she took the basket to her room, promptly folded her clothes and unzipped the mesh bag which normally would have held her delicates, but had just been used to literally launder money.

She looked at the washed and air-cycle dried stack of bills from the Merchants on her desk. Proof that crime does pay, but was she actually a criminal, or just a subcontractor? At least now she'd be able to afford those anti-shatter glare reducing prescription safety lenses for her mask so she wouldn't have to wear her glasses underneath.

Taylor flopped on her bed and stared at the ceiling while her thoughts raced. That one bill with Squealers phone number was still in her costumes' storage compartment. Taylor felt conflicted and wondered if she would ever call that number and bring the Merchants down on the head of an unsuspecting Tinker. In either case she would have to buy a burner phone, or better yet, two of them later today anyway.

Damn, did she really name herself Butterfly? Well, it sure beat Skidmarks' favorite suggestion. Maybe she could add orange to her costume and call herself Monarch? Or azure and venture out as the Blue Morpho? No… she'd constantly have to explain that one. It's not like her cape name was set in stone just because she blurted out the first thing she could think of to keep Skidmark from calling her…

She shivered in disgust at the very thought.

Half the bills she hid inbetween her mattresses while the rest made it into her purse before she went back downstairs, checked the pantry, and wrote up a shopping list.  
Taylor caught the bus and spent the rest of the day shopping for a better first aid kit, anti-bruise cream for her throat, and more epipens at a Pharmacy, and more turtlenecks at a discount clothing store. On impulse she also picked up mini binoculars at the sporting goods store which would have helped scout the house last night. A couple of cheap flashlights and a cigarette lighter or two she could throw for distraction purposes rounded out her purchases of 'camping gear'. The hardware store offered up a few small items which should come in handy later, besides she had wanted a set of mini screwdrivers to tighten the screws on her glasses for a while now.

She talked the gun store owner into letting her get a collapsible police baton and a rugged bowie knife to add to her arsenal. If she'd had either one of those in her hand she might have been able to block Oni Lee's knife from hitting her throat last night. Too bad she was underage to buy a taser or stun gun, but when she showed the guy behind the counter the bruise on her neck from 'that asshole boyfriend' she'd just made up he sold her two canisters the bear-strength mace and pointed out which self-defense classes on his bulletin board and suggested which were more suitable for someone of her body type. Judo, yes. Boxing, no.

Just as she was nearing the checkout in the grocery store an idea occurred to her, and with a predatory grin she emptied the entire display rack of disposable cameras into her basket.

She finished her shopping and was back home in plenty of time to make a lasagna with the ingredients she'd bought and she watched a movie with her father when he came home.

The pleasant Sunday afternoon she'd spent with her Dad after she fixed a late breakfast reminded her of some pleasant family memories. She wanted to hold on to moments like these, uneasy about what revealing her cape status to her father would do to their relationship. The concurrently running project to make jogging shoe spider silk slipcovers used up the last pieces of her spare silk cloth by the end of the day.

Monday arrived with the buzz of her alarm clock and her typical morning jog.

Unpleasant memories surfaced as she jogged near Emma's house. Her tormentor was still asleep, which gave her the perfect opportunity to send aphids to bite off a few more follicles of hair.

Taylor packed her shawl into the duffel bag and directed hundreds of Black Widows inside to add the drawstring hood during the day at school.

She dropped by the office, showed off her neck bruise and claimed Sophia assaulted her after school on Friday off school property. Then she explained her plan to the office staff who signed off on it since it required no effort on their part.

Her school day began as uneventfully as possible due to Sophia's banishment to in-school suspension in the third floor classroom with all the other malcontents, Madison's focus on the battle to repair her reputation, and Emma's absence probably due to Doctor's appointments.

Taylor made sure her bugs dropped a condom on Madison's chair in every class that day to keep the momentum going even though she was dressed chastely for a change. At this rate Taylor would need to have her swarms get more from the Pharmacy the next night she went out in costume.

Her spiders added to the hood on her shawl or worked in teams weaving two foot lengths of braided spider silk for her to combine later. Taylor noticed her range encompassed some of the houses in the neighborhood around Winslow depending where her classes were located.

Perhaps she could cultivate some swarms there as well, if only to help feed the Black Widows she brought with her almost every day to weave under her instruction. Follow the advice the Freshman History teacher was giving down the hall: Stalin _had_ said quantity has a quality all its' own.

Just before lunch Taylor decided to target Sophia. Nothing too obvious today, just bugs biting through one in ten strands of elastic in her athletic gear and socks. Merely a minor annoyance now, but by then end of the week half her workout clothes would be worthless. If Sophia suited up for Track practice she could do the same to her street clothes before catching the bus home.

The last class of the day was Math with Mr. Quinlan. However, Taylor's real attention was focused on the meeting between Principal Blackwell and Alan Barnes.

Alan entered, opened his briefcase, and pulled out a sheaf of defaced modeling glossies and advertisements featuring his daughter.

Principal Blackwell held up a placating hand to interrupt him, "Have you ever heard of Occam's Razor?"

"Yes, the idea that the simplest answer is most often true."

Principal Blackwell nodded and continued, "Here at Winslow problems with students crop up so often I've used different management techniques to deal with them. Pass me one of those pages and I'll demonstrate."

"One of the simplest is 'W5+H', asking Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How."

Principal Blackwell held up the page with crude graffiti on it and said, "Your daughter is _not_ the Who we're looking for, that would be the one who made this, which we can narrow down to anyone with a marker."

"The What is the ad itself, publically available in the Boardwalk's weekly magazine, defaced in the manner of uncounted Pee-Chee folders over the years."

"Where they were found was on the row of lockers adjacent to Emma's own locker, accessible by anyone in the school. When they were put there we know was during the class period after lunch. Why they were put up is anyone's guess , but it _was_ April Fools Day, and as for the How, we have no hall pass system at Winslow so that narrows it down to anyone who left class for whatever reason."

"So this school is taking no responsibility for this outrage to my Daughter?" asked Alan Barnes.

"There is no responsibility to take, Mr. Barnes. We recovered a few flyers but you took the rest with you and as such you could have manufactured more on your own in the same style over the weekend. But simply put this… all of this," Principal Blackwell said as she gestured to the defaced flyers the lawyer had placed on her desk, "is just not enough evidence for action on our part."

Principal Blackwell looked into Alan Barnes eyes and said, "But I know none of that matters to you since you would divert even more resources away from educating the students at Winslow by bringing a lawsuit _anyway_."

The lawyer smiled, "Well, that is my job."

"Yes, which is why we're having this meeting at all. So what can we do to work this situation out without the time, trouble, and expense of a lawsuit?"

Taylor's attention came back to herself as she gathered the half-complete project her spiders worked on all day and board the bus home. When her spiders finished the hood tomorrow she'd be able to go out and try her hand at Hero-ing again. She couldn't help but think about the meeting she'd just overheard.

The way Principal Blackwell had methodically taken apart the validity of the evidence against Emma could just as well be turned against her own diary of the bullying campaign since the beginning of sophomore year. If she'd brought in her best evidence of bullying for it to be dissected and brushed aside like that, Taylor wasn't sure what she would do. Kind of sucks to learn your knockout punch is in reality a powder puff.

Her mood turned dark as the bus roared away from Winslow, _"There is no Justice,"_ Taylor thought, _"There's just this."_


	10. Chapter 10

Gaiatsu 2.3

Taylor sensed Emma by the earwig hidden behind her purse lining before she spotted her new hairdo under a cute jaunty beret in the distance while changing classes.

So far Emma had avoided Madison, apparently abandoning the girl to be grist for the rumor mill, so the bloom was off the rose there.

Taylor's early arrival at school to post half of the remaining defaced flyers before most of the student body arrived had paid off in starting Emma's school day off on the wrong foot. Bugs readjusted all of Emma's bras during her morning jog, so the left straps were all shorter than the ones on the right hand side, while the redhead was in the shower Taylor had also planted the seed for her ex-friends' discomfort later on.

Taylor had no opportunity to eavesdrop using swarms and undermine any of her former friend's plans before they even got started. However she already knew the shape the encounter with Emma was determined to take.

Emma gathered her regular social circle of hangers-on and proceeded to walk while they chatted in formation, they moved down the hall like a street sweeper constructed of popularity which forced other students to move out of their way.

Emma glanced in the direction of the restroom but saw Taylor up ahead and decided to use her internal tumult and redirect the sensations to fuel her vitriol towards her prey. _"The poor thing's had the entire weekend off,"_ she thought, _"so better remind her of her proper place: at the bottom of the heap."_

That's when Taylor did something unexpected. She took something out of her pocket and leaned into a classroom for a second, and leaned back out with it in her hands.

Emma smirked and said, "Oh Taylor, you look like you're about to..."

*FLASH*

She tried to blink away the green afterimage which dully strobed in the center of her sight. A few seconds later she looked around for Taylor who was nowhere to be seen.

"Going bald, Emma? You said you never wear hats, they look like _crap._ "

Emma turned around angrily right into another *FLASH* from the disposable camera in Taylor's hands. Now two greenish blobs clouded her vision.

"What are you..."

"No time for talking out your _ass_ , Emma, you look _flushed_. You're _pushing_ your luck, is the _pressure_ getting to you?"

Emma grasped her noisome belly, her knees locked as the eyedrops Taylor's bugs had liberally coated Emma's reusable water bottle with earlier that morning had finally loosened her bowels judging by the vibrations small bugs sensed on her abdomen.

Taylor turned and took a picture of a clock on the wall. "Better get your _shit_ together before you let _loose_ , Emma."

The clique of girls pulled away slightly in revulsion at Emma's ungainly sprint to the nearest bathroom, rudderless without their social alpha to lead them.

Taylor sensed the girls disperse. She knew that when Emma again experienced the red food coloring mixed with blood that had leaked from whatever mystery meat the cafeteria prepared after lunch, she'd head straight to the Nurse's office. It was why it was such an effective tool to use Emma's narcissism against her.

Taylor sent mosquitoes through the ducts to Emma's next class by way of the cafeteria kitchen to prepare. Emma would probably be concerned for her health and go home for the rest of the day. Good thing Taylor had already stashed bottles of eyedrops and red food coloring in the vents and on top of the lights in the cafeteria above her regular lunch table for any contingencies.

Taylor almost felt bad Emma hadn't pushed the issue further. She kind of looked forward to the confrontation in Blackwell's office where she backed up a bullying claim with pictures showing the nearest classroom with wall clock clearly visible, two more of her tag along tormentors in action, and another picture of the clock in the hallway bookending the events in place and time. Covering the Who, What, Where and When of Blackwell's W5+H criteria should go a long way to document the ongoing campaign of bullying against her.

Taylor tucked the disposable camera back into her sweatshirt pocket and walked to class. It went a little out of her way to take a photo of the calendar in the office every morning to 'level set' the time and place of subsequent photos, but the final goal would be worth it.

Meanwhile under the building Black Widows put the finishing touches on her new costume hood while on the third floor ants chewed partway through one shoelace right at the grommet on Sophia's left shoe as the athlete sat in in-school detention.

Taylor walked down the hall with a slight bounce in her step. Today was shaping up to be another good day.

That evening Taylor sneaked out of the house again and headed deeper into the city. No point to risk running into the Merchants again nearer the Docks.

So far she'd only managed to scare off one mugger with a timely swarm of bees and planned to go after a convenience store robbery she'd just noticed two blocks over when a familiar tick popped in and out of her senses and was headed this way.

Smaller bugs disappeared nearby Shadow Stalker, and she landed flies on the person she figured out was Kid Win by the pistols on the hips of his armor and the trademark hoverboard which sucked bugs into its vents.

Taylor didn't want her first meeting with the Wards to go as badly as her run-in with Oni Lee and the Merchants had, so she decided to hang back and just observe instead.

If Sophia hadn't been there she might have made the first move. However since Shadow Stalker was present, Taylor was reminded of the relevance of something her fathers' friend had said after his divorce: _'He wouldn't cross the street to piss on her even if she were laying there on fire.'_

The convenience store being robbed was between a boarded up abandoned building and a used car dealership surrounded by an electric fence. Neon beer signs crowded for space in the front windows with locked ice freezers on the side opposite the car dealership. Power and phone lines crisscrossed above the multiple lighted signs on top of the roof.

Kid Win flew ahead into the sky above the car dealership for overwatch, Shadow Stalkers' ghost-assisted leaps almost carried her all the way there as they took in the situation. Unfortunately Taylor couldn't risk massing enough bugs to hear what they said clearly over the ambient sounds of the city, too much chance of being noticed.

One of the robbers, a tall burly bear of a man going by how far apart the flies Taylor had placed on his shoulders were, held a pistol on the cashier. Next to the door the second tall skinny man with long hair skulked behind a postcard display and peered out past the neon signs on the widow on the lookout for police. Too bad he didn't look up and see Kid Win on his hoverboard. The third robber, the smallest of the three, helped himself to something from a refrigerated case. Taylor sent a few flies into his jacket pocket and verified the stun gun inside.

Then Shadow Stalker sprinted in a wide arc and bypassed the car dealership entirely, flickered into her shadow form as she leapt high above the convenience store parking lot. She landed on the abandoned building on the far side from the direction she had originally come from with Kid Win to finally leap into the alley behind the convenience store.

Taylor was puzzled why Shadow Stalker would take such a circuitous route to ghost through the wall to the right of the rear security door. Especially with a robbery in progress. Maybe she didn't want to chance she might set off the security alarm and alert the robbers to her presence.

Shadow Stalker crept all the way up the convenience store aisle to the front of the store like a mountain lion hunting a deer. Kid Win dropped down about ten feet and the tall robber at the window shouted something.

Just as the big guy holding the pistol on the cashier turned his head, Shadow Stalker popped up and shot a tranquilizer dart into his neck, causing his shot at her to go wide. Behind Shadow Stalker, a glass refrigerator door shattered. The tall skinny robber on lookout panicked, ran away from her out the front and got gunned down by Kid Win, where he fell unconscious almost immediately.

The lumbering robber next to the cash register collapsed as the tranquilizers took effect, the final robber on his feet fumbled the stun gun out of his pocket just to end up with Shadow Stalkers foot embedded in his groin.

Kid Win landed and pulled out a bundle of zip ties from a long pocket on his belt. Shadow Stalker secured both robbers arms behind their backs. Taylor had finally caught up to the Wards and saw the crime scene through her own eyes and through her bugs senses when Shadow Stalker gave the robber curled painfully on the floor another kick for good measure when Kid Win's back was turned calling the Brockton Bay Police Department.

 _"No surprise Sophia's a bully even when she's in costume,"_ Taylor thought.

Now that she actually saw the entire neighborhood in person from where she hid in the alley across the street, it brought up even more questions about Shadow Stalkers behavior. Why bother to go around three sides of the square building to enter through the back when the robbery was going on and the cashier could have been shot at any time? She took them down so effortlessly, Shadow Stalker could have gone right in the front through one of the neon signs hanging in the windows and maintained the same element of surprise instead of sneaking up on them from inside the convenience store.

Something didn't add up.

Taylor could understand Shadow Stalker not ghosting through the car dealerships' electrified chain link fence since there wasn't enough of a gap to turn solid again before reaching the building. Maybe Shadow Stalker didn't have the momentum to carry through? No, because she had ghost-leaped clear across the parking lot in order to circumnavigate the convenience store, so that wasn't it.

Taylor tried to assess the situation again. Let Sophia's actions speak louder than words. She'd gone through the wall next to the security door in back. Not _through_ the door, but _next_ to it. For that matter, why not ghost leap through the refrigerators on the side of the convenience store with the abandoned building?

Shadow Stalker hadn't dropped through the roof either. Taylor took another look at the crisscrossed phone lines and power lines above the plethora of lit signs on the roof of the convenience store. Why wouldn't Shadow Stalker want to ghost through them? She would have had to go in blind if she ghosted through the roof… but Shadow Stalker did that _anyway_ when she ghosted through the wall next to the door in the back of the store.

Why didn't Shadow Stalker do any of those things? Was it that she didn't want to? Or was it that Shadow Stalker couldn't? Taylor pieced it together in her mind: Shadow Stalker avoided the electric fence, the neon signs, the refrigerator wall, the security door in back and the wires and lit signs on the roof. She also held a grudge against the robber with the stun gun, but _not_ the one who had actually got a shot off at her. All had one commonality.

 _"A working theory, but how to test it?"_ Taylor pondered.

Taylor reached into her storage compartment and pulled out a wrinkled bill and debated whether or not to call the number scrawled on it.


	11. Chapter 11

Interlude: Merchants in Repose

Calm waves lapped on the beach of this overcast night, the thalassic susurrus of the surf soothed stretched nerves of many.

"ARE THEY FUCKIN' HERE YET?!"

...But not of all.

"They're your guys, you should know," said a balaclava clad head which poked out of the semi truck, its flatbed trailer weighed down with the best scrap a vehicle Tinker could ever lust after.

A trackless bulldozer with fire scorched backhoe, helicopter turbine engines, farming tractors, gearboxes, differentials, car and truck axles, the fuselage of a 2-seater airplane, the winches off of a collapsed construction crane and assorted engines piled haphazardly and more overflowed the open top of one sturdy steel shipping container.

A second container held large sheets of steel and stacked steel I-beams as well as securely strapped down pressurized tanks of Oxygen, Acetylene, and Liquid Nitrogen among full tool chests and welding gear.

Skidmark muttered expletive laced complaints as time dragged on. The irritation to get this job finished so he could kick back and destroy some more brain cells increased in direct proportion to the rate the drugs he'd used to take the edge off metabolized.

Too bad Mush had practically O.D.'d yesterday and was still sleeping it off.

Skidmark had no one to talk to except Moist, that stuck-up asshole.

Eventually he went back to try, but mostly fail, to skip rocks across the water.

Sand and saltwater sprayed in the air as Squealer's vehicle brutally skimmed into view as the buxom blonde Tinker steered it up the beach to hover on a caged lightning storm.

Some sand fused into glass while spots of asphalt melted under the electrical discharges zapped randomly as Squealer steered her creation to a rest, multiple noisy engines idled to a stop one by one.

Squealer raised dark welding goggles from her face. "Hey baby, you miss me?" the Tinker asked as she leaned out the window of the bashed together kludge of a vehicle.

"Fuckin' A!" shouted Skidmark in response, "and the rest of the fuckin' alphabet too!"

"As delightful as nearly being electrocuted in the open ocean has been," said a top-hatted cape who stretched his legs after he exited the vehicle, "let's get this show on the road."

"Who pissed in your cornflakes, Trickster?" asked Sundancer while she helped a four armed Genesis move her comatose real body out of the passenger area.

"Let's just get going before anything happens," he said with a nervous glance back at the large modified shipping container secured to Squealer's vehicle with straps. Coil's mercenaries followed Trickster's instructions and removed the tie downs.

With a whoosh of displaced air the two cargoes on the vehicles swapped places like chess pieces in a castling maneuver. A second bump marked the transit of the Travellers container of personal belongings for the construction skip of tools and supplies.

A repetitious whine followed by a crack contrasted with sudden snapping sounds from down the beach while Coil's mercenaries re-secured both loads for transport.

Skidmark had piled dozens of his blueshifted layers of force on a driftwood log half buried in the beach sand and engaged in a rock skipping contest with Ballistic.

"OK, OK, OK... Five more layers down, a hundred bucks says my rock goes the farthest this time."

"You're on," said Ballistic, with a snap the rock in his palm leapt out into the ocean at incredible velocity.

Skidmark dropped his stone on the driftwood log and watched it rapidly accelerate, another thin layer of wood splintered from the log with a buzzsaw whine as the rock created a small sonic boom and sailed into the distance.

The mercenary drafted as referee raised his binoculars up and watched two plumes far out in the bay and said, "Skidmark got it this time."

"YES! Pay up!"

Ballistic counted out the money he owed the leader of the Merchants out of the winnings he'd already taken from the man.

Skidmark yelled, "Hey Moist! Reposition this log so it points at the PRT's rig, I bet I can hit it from here."

The waterlogged cape stood up from the damp patch where he sat, sand clung to his damp jeans since water continually condensed out of the air onto his skin, a rivulet of water rolled from the puddle he had created down into the surf.

Moist raised his arms and a rippling tentacle formed out of water topped by a large blob formed in the bay and moved toward the shore.

"Knock it off, dumbasses!" Squealer shouted, "We're ready to go! The stealth field's gonna cut way down as soon as we get movin'."

"Rain check?"

"Definitely."

Skidmark faded the blue layers of force out of existence and climbed next to Squealer in the cab.

An outside observer would have seen a semi truck suddenly appear and drive out of the beachfront parking lot while short lived dust devils of sand arose on the beach also apparently from nowhere.

 _The lone light bulb flickered erratically for a moment where it dangled from the central peak of the army tent._

 _He lay flat on his back on a folding cot, the only conscious observer left after this winter campaign to push south past the line on a map denoting the parallel of fifty four degrees, forty minutes north._

 _It wasn't the sporadic moans of the wounded which got to him the most, nor the putrid septic stench of the dead and the dying as their numbers inexorably shifted from the latter to the former._

 _Not even the pain where his knees used to be, or that incessant itch where the arch of his right foot would have been if he hadn't stepped on that landmine._

 _No, the soaked bandages, uniform, and blanket clung to him. He sweated profusely as his body futilely fought the fires of infection which burnt through him even while snow fell silently mere inches away on the other side of canvas._

 _He'd never liked the heat. Where others would flock west to the beaches in the summertime he escaped east to mountains and cool glacier-fed lakes as often as possible to avoid the merest hint of muggy humid weather._

 _But here and now he knew that just like that doctor on that show about a space station had said, "Every problem eventually boils down to one of two things: Biology or Math."_

 _Biology, in that his own had failed to overcome the infection which ravaged his body after the loss of his legs._

 _Math, in that impersonal cruel calculus of the greatest good for the most wounded with the best chance of recovery amid limited resources._

 _Triage. Lumped in with all the rest too far gone to save, the dead and the dying, or those who could not recover in time to flee the artillery bombardments coming ever northward from the enemy guns._

 _Over the interminable hours that passed he'd heard desperate whispered pleas to saints, angels, and even devils._

 _But there were no bargains brokered, no deals struck, no agreements kept or last minute reprieves granted for any._

 _Only the minor variations of paroxysms of death, reduced sounds which indicated life became rarer as the inexorable arrow of time flew on, occasionally punctuated by explosions coming nearer and nearer._

 _A lull in the bombardment, his own ability to draw breath was now unique among all others around him. Futile thoughts raced inside his skull, desperation almost gave way to panic as he tried to think of a way to survive this._

 _His own eyes were the only ones to see the white rectangle elongate in mid air, the woman step through, his were the only ears able to hear her offer._

 _Biology or Math. He accepted the narrowest of chances offering the slimmest possibility of survival, but when the only other option paid off at negative infinity, what choice was there, really?_

Bums brawled in the street a block ahead, a police car already pulled up to break up the fight. Squealers vehicle buoyed by forces which casually gave physics the finger turned and proceeded down the road.

Unseen by all save the few inside the energetic field generated by her vehicle.

Technically it wasn't a stealth field, but it served the same purpose.

Space warped around the vehicle seamlessly, a folded pocket which allowed almost all light to skip past them to any observer as if they weren't there at all.

Since some light could get in, but none could get out, the interior of the area warped around them gradually brightened the longer the tinker-tech was activated.

The recent long run from Boston had Squealer squinting against the brightness even through the thick smoked glass of her welders goggles.

Other staged distractions for the cost of a bottle of gin here or a baggie of pills there provided a traffic free, although circuitous, route into their destination. Just one of many abandoned warehouses near the Docks.

The seemingly haphazard mishmash of technology settled to the concrete floor.

Merchants opened hatches to either side of Squealer's creation and ran with cables coiled on spools which unrolled until they clamped on to pillars that supported the warehouse roof.

Strange energies conducted through the buildings' metal frame and anyone who happened to look in a window would see a dark, silent, empty warehouse.

Yet walk cross the threshold inside the building and shouted orders could be heard in the dim, but gradually brightening area.

This was how Squealer could weld, rivet, drill, and hammer yet never be disturbed or discovered as her creations took shape in the night, a different location every night.

An invisible floating chop shop to render stolen vehicles down to parts for easy resale or components for Squealers' latest creation.

"You wanna join me for a toke and poke?" Skidmark asked with a leer.

Squealer replied, "Nah, I gotta sort through the new toys and got some new boys to interview later as well."

"Cool, cool," said Skidmark, "Wake me with a blowjob when you get home."

Merchants drifted in over the next hour to help Squealer set up her transient workshop.

A Merchant lookout at a high window pointed and shouted, "Hey! Armsmaster's coming!"

Everyone dropped what they were doing and ran to the windows, tables and chairs pushed close to the glass outside.

Squealer bellowed commands at Merchants to fan out all along the widows.

"Here he comes!"

Thumbs tucked into her belt, Squealer yelled "It's a go! …In three! …two…"

Armsmaster steered his motorcycle down the street between two abandoned warehouses alert for any gang activity.

Unknown to him, not fifteen feet away thirty Merchants had dropped their pants and mooned the arguably second most powerful Tinker on the planet.

Oblivious, he continued his patrol and drove away.

The sound of laughter and belts being re-buckled filled the warehouse.

"Operation 'Assmaster' _never_ gets old!"

 _The woman in the white lab coat stood on the other side of the painted line on the floor across the opening to his cell. The man with her hung back in the shadows, mostly unseen._

 _"I have to say, I'm less than impressed."_

 _He glared at the shrouded figure and did his best to ignore the callous casual insult._

 _The woman consulted her clipboard and impersonally rattled off information about him as if he weren't even there. "The apparent partial transformation may have been exacerbated by his injured condition resulting in the profusion of lower vestigial appendages. None of them below the waist alone or in concert are strong enough to move even the atrophied mass of his torso. Effectively sessile. One of our rare Tinkers and only rated at level one or perhaps barely a two. Thinker zero or one since he can operate his overbuilt prosthetics without electronics 'by hand', or flipper as it were."_

 _"Not even a candidate for the Nemesis program, then?"_

 _"No electronics means no easy EMP vulnerability to exploit, although the sheer durability of his crude Tinkering holds some merit."_

 _He didn't like being talked about like the mangiest dog in the pound, but it still beat the alternative he left behind. At least they provided him with tools and parts to build the admittedly basic designs that swam through his brain._

 _His artificial legs walked him around the half completed project of a miniaturized steam power plant held in place by the strong, bulky artificial arms still to be integrated into his battlesuit._

 _If only the damn thing weren't so hot he wouldn't have had to include so many heat sinks and the secondary electrical systems for ventilation fans and lights._

 _A brief flash of light glinted off the man's glasses as he nodded. "Nevermind, I know the perfect placement for him."_

 _Well, it wasn't like he actually had a choice in the matter anyway._

Squealer looked at the men in front of her. Drug addicts all, in deep debt to the Merchant organization or they wouldn't be here.

What separated these few from the pack was the jobs they had, or once had, before their addictions brought them to this point.

Over the sometimes deafening sounds of power tools and screech of tortured metal they lined up and stated their previous occupations.

They called out Engine Technician, a couple of Mechanics, an Electrician, a Machinist, a few Welders and one honest to goodness Sanitation Engineer.

Not the jumped-up title for a garbage man, but the guy who graduated college to learn the two most important things about city wide Plumbing. First: that water flows downhill, and second: that it ain't all water.

"You're all here because some of you might be useful stripping stolen cars to sell for parts or building my next vehicle instead of toting a rifle or becoming a new dealer for us," Squealer said over the din.

She pointed to a sturdy but beat up table with an anvil bolted on one end, a large vise on the other, and several hammers of different sizes inbetween.

"OK, first test," said Squealer as she held up a bulky foot-long bolt with a large hex nut halfway up it, inexpertly welded on in one place and handed it to a Mechanic, "unscrew this."

"You gotta be shitting me," he complained, holding the heavy metal in his hands, "that weld's huge."

"Right, you're out, go help the others unload." Squealer yanked the bolt out of his grasp and handed it to the next man in line.

With a mumbled "righty tighty, lefty loosey" the unshaven addict separated the threaded bottom half of the bolt from the hex nut welded to the top, a slight grin on his face at working the task to completion.

Squealer bounced her hands under her breasts and announced to the group, "These ain't brains, but I'm a Tinker, which makes me smarter than you. That also means if I tell you to do something, I don't want the first words outta your mouth to be a whiny bitchfest about how you can't do shit without even trying first."

She pointed at the Sanitation Engineer and said, "You, college guy. Poke your head through this," as she handed the man a length of steel rebar bent and welded into a six-inch across circle.

"Um, what exactly do you mean?" asked the Sanitation Engineer while he looked skeptically through the small ring of solid steel.

"I mean poke your head through it, like this…" said the Tinker. She sauntered up to him, leaned in close and reached her arm through the ring to flick him on the forehead as she playfully said, "Poke!"

A few chuckled when she took the ring back from the blushing man, tossed it on the table and said, "He did the right thing. If you don't understand what I tell ya to do, ASK."

"If ya don't, you just might end up with a nickname," Squealer turned and yelled at a Merchant in a leather apron pounding a rod through two clamped pieces of steel to create a large hinge, "AIN'T THAT RIGHT, ' _HALO_ '?"

The Merchant in question looked up, frowned, and flipped off Squealer.

She laughed a little then turned back to the group, "Now, next each one of you grab one of those hammers on the table."

The men walked forward, elbowed each other for position, picked up a hammer and returned to the line.

Squealer appraised their choices, walked over to the burly man who took the largest sledgehammer and said, "OK, we get it. Understood. Message received, loud and clear. You have a tiny dick."

Amid the outbursts of nervous laughter of the assembled men, Squealer returned to the table and picked up a hammer of her own. Squealer turned back to the laughing men and said, "This next bit is for bragging rights. But also so it sinks in that if you're here in _my_ shop, you work hard. No slacking, no excuses."

Squealer pointed to a clock on the wall, its' second hand swept rapidly towards twelve. "Arm straight, raise your hammer to shoulder level and keep it there for one minute," she said as she raised her own hammer, "starting… NOW."

After the first ten seconds the mens' hammers wavered slightly in the air, while Squealer's remained still, practically unmoving. The big sledgehammer was the first to fall and cracked the concrete.

Over the next ten seconds arms wobbled and weaved. "You in the red, no bending your elbow, you're out," Squealer said, "and you in the back... nice try, but no holding up your arm with your other arm. You're out too."

Five seconds later three of the remaining six men had dropped their arms. Squealer smiled a lopsided grin and said through clenched teeth, "Final four, time to separate the men from the boys."

Seven sweaty seconds later the next man dropped his arm and tried to massage some feeling back into it with his other hand. Squealer glanced at the clock, the second hand swept past the eight, then locked eyes with the bearded, bald, clock-watching Machinist and said, "Halfway there…"

He muttered "But..." and with his concentration broken dropped his hammer as well.

"OK strong guy…" said Squealer, but she was interrupted by a loud screech of metal moving against metal.

All attention in the noisy warehouse focused on the shifting parts inside the largest container. A transmission tipped over one side and an engine block went the other way and noisily banged on the ground.

"GET THE GUNS!" Squealer yelled as she ran toward the container of machinery hammer in hand and thought, _"If Coil fucked us I'm gonna shove this hammer up his ass sideways."_

A massive hydraulic fist lifted a tractor up in the air, another grasped the lip of the container and bent the steel with a complaining screech of metal.

An armored form eight feet tall rose into view, the faceplate a crudely welded mishmash of rusty iron grillwork and lenses from welders masks.

A few Merchants quick on the uptake realized their rifles would do little against this metal colossus and looked to Squealer to provide orders.

The hulking form dropped the tractor on top of an airplane cockpit which shattered.

Now both metallic hands crushed the steel container rim further, the metal man leaned forward and flipped head over heels out of the massive bin of parts with a cacophonous clatter.

Squealer got a good look at the powered armor as it rolled onto all fours.

Hydraulic rams mimiced muscle groups, pushing instead of pulling. Each foot had two large toes angled out for stability.

The faceplate popped open and a man's head lolled forward and vomited copiously on the floor beneath him.

"Eeeughk... Milk was a baaaad choice…"

 _He reviewed the files on the Merchants one more time._

 _"You have the backup locations for your dead drops in case you communications gear conks out, yes?"_

 _He stared down at the obsequious little man Coil employed to handle some of his affairs. 'Yes, Mr. Porter, I've got it. You're sure this insertion plan is going to work?"_

 _"Oh yes, definitely. It's not like they would turn away an apparent addict and your designs are congruent with Squealer's own style."_

 _He slipped the bottle of ipecac into his breast pocket to sell the illusion and climbed into the container as cranes loaded equipment on top of his battle suit._

 _Even with the power plant running at minimum the delightful heat permeated his body._

 _At least he wouldn't be cold. He hated the cold._

The armored suit clambered into a standing position. The man inside asked, "This ain't New Orleans, is it?"

"Nope," answered Squealer, "Brockton Bay. You got a name?"

"Call me Trainwreck. Brockton Bay, huh. East Coast?"

Squealer nodded.

"Good. The farther away from Cranial the better."

Squealer turned and lifted the bolt from the table. "Since you're new in town, you might as well join these guys in the interview…"

A minute later at the mechanical man's feet lay two halves of a cut bolt, a hex nut unceremoniously stripped off one end with its' weld broken by force, the remains of a ring of steel rebar warped and twisted by hydraulic driven fingers before it was yanked in two.

"We'll skip the hammer test," Squealer said, and turned to the Electrician. "Here, hold this."

The man reached out and grabbed the metal ends of the jumper cables and convulsed as he was electrocuted.

"My ASS you're an Electrician!" Squealer said, unclipping the jumper cables she had connected to a car battery earlier,, "Drag this dipshit out of here."

Trainwreck watched the impostor get carried out and said, "Anyone have something to eat? That technicolor yawn really emptied me out."

At Squealer's hip a phone buzzed to life, the Tinker didn't recognize the incoming number.

Squealer answered, "Yeah? Who is this?"

 _"This is…" the voice on the phone sighed slightly, "…Butterfly. Kid Win's at the convenience store at Lord Street and Mission. BBPD are on their way"_

"Great!" Squealer replied, "I'm heading out right now. Call me later for your finder's fee."

 _Butterfly interrupted, "One more thing. Shadow Stalker's with him, and I noticed she's avoiding power lines and neon signs like they're contagious."_

Sparks flew as Trainwreck tapped the jumper cables on his armored body to the tune of _'Shave and a Haircut'_.

Squealer glanced at Trainwreck with a smirk, "Thanks, that'll come in handy. Squealer out."

She turned to the prospective apprentice mechanics with a feral grin. "Okay, boys, saddle up! This is your trial by fire!" She pointed to the vehicle in the center of the cavernous building, "Halo! Unhook the cables and pile in. Half of you with guns stay here and lay low, the other half come with me."

She pointed to a wet lump in a hammock suspended over a drain in the concrete floor and said, "Somebody wake Moist, we might as well take him along."

Squealer addressed the new recruits and said, "Out there, they all think you're worthless junkies. In here, you have value. Everyone contributes, everyone profits. We're Merchants! We take all we want and sell the rest!"

The tinker barked more orders as the chop shop ceased operations then approached Trainwreck.

"You bring that too," Squealer pointed to the car battery and jumper cables, "We'll knock over a fast food place on the way back."

Steam hissed as ungainly pistons propelled the mechanical man forward. "Best offer I've had all day," he said and clambered aboard the now-hovering vehicle.

Squealer accelerated through the open warehouse doors and said, "I can tell this is gonna be the start of a beautiful friendship…."


	12. Chapter 12

Gaiatsu 2.4

Butterfly stayed hidden in the alley, not wanting to betray her presence or become linked to anything which was about to occur.

She still felt a little morally conflicted about having made the call, but justified it with three words: Sophia. Fucking. Hess.

Currently it was like a live TV show, two police cars with flashing red and blue lights in the convenience store parking lot as the Wards gave their statements to the BBPD.

The apprehended criminals sat handcuffed in the squad cars still to be driven off to jail.

Like the feral growl of an angry wounded animal the roar of engine noise flooded the street from everywhere as an armor plated monstrosity of skimmed into view on uncountable arcs of lightning.

Tortured metal screeched as one of the BBPD cars was sideswiped followed by a horrific oddly hollow crunch and hiss of pressurized water from the fire hydrant rammed off of its mounting.

Contrary to expectations, the water did not spray into the air, instead a globular mass of water somehow held itself together while it grew and grew even as the Merchant vehicle rocked from the disembarkation of a massive metal man who moved with hissing pistons and belched vents of steam.

The police officers pulled their service pistols and opened fire where their bullets joined Shadow Stalker's crossbow bolts to bounce off the brobdingnagian Brute ineffectively.

Kid Win tried to take to the air, but couldn't even detach the hoverboard from the back of his armor before the aquatic mass the size of a minivan simply enveloped him.

Based off of Moist's flailing arms and Kid Win's energetic deluged cavitations the teen Tinker might as well have been put in a oversized washing machine on spin cycle.

Shots from the lone laser pistol barely made it three feet into the water only to leave a line of bubbles where the water had boiled before absorbing the beam's energy.

Squealer's vehicle sent out a shockwave of distorted air which caught the cops unaware and knocked them off their feet.

Across the street the expanding wavefront even managed to forcefully bump the trashcans Butterfly had hidden behind as the crash and tinkle of broken windows came from all around.

Shadow Stalker ghosted briefly and was unaffected by the buffeting force in her breaker state. She crouched behind a cop car and reloaded her crossbows as the cyclopean steampunk stomped towards her.

With a ghost-assisted leap Shadow Stalker fired from ten feet in the air at the piston pushed powered armor on the other side of the BBPD car.

Precision use of her powers sent one bolt halfway into the fifty gallon barrel sized left forearm which apparently caused him to finch away as if in pain and the other shot re-solidified in the middle of the metal man's forehead.

"Walk _that_ one off asshoOAAaaAA _iiieee!_ "

Electricity snapped when the giant juggernaut whipped Shadow Stalker in the air above the police cruiser with the jumper cables.

The faked flinch was actually camouflage for him to whirl his right arm rapidly around and what had appeared to be a power cable inexpertly attached to the exterior of his armor flew loose to catch the Ward while in her breaker state.

The overconfident electrocuted former vigilante painfully smashed into the roof of the patrol vehicle, her prone form cast eerie moving shadows as the red and blue lights revolved beneath her body.

With a contemptuous flick of his wrist he broke off the crossbow bolt imbedded in his forearm and tossed the remains in Shadow Stalker's mask, leaned closer to the downed Ward menacingly and pointed to the bolt imbedded in his armored helmet.

"Ha, ha! You missed all my vital spots!"

"TRAINWRECK!" Squealer bellowed from the cab of her vehicle, "Quit fuckin' around and load that pig-mobile on the flatbed. We got what we came for!"

Kid Win was on all fours and vomited water as Moist climbed into Squealer's rig with one of the Ward's pistols captured as spoils of war.

The half-crushed cop car with two panicked robbers still handcuffed in the backseat rocked on its' suspension as Trainwreck unceremoniously scooped up the damaged vehicle and dropped it on the flatbed of Squealer's vehicle before clambering up after it.

With the deafening roar of engines and extension of middle fingers the Merchant Machine skimmed away on a platform of lightning to disappear without a trace not half a block away.

Butterfly briefly surveyed the aftermath of the cape battle, well... ambush if she was honest with herself, she had called down on the Wards and police officers as they moved slowly amid the broken glass scattered everywhere by that shockwave weapon of Squealers'.

 _"It couldn't happen to a nicer bitch,"_ Butterfly thought as she made her way to the far end of the alley to jog back home. She was comforted in the knowledge that for Sophia the worst part was yet to come.

Filling out the paperwork.

She jogged home in the darkness, confident she would get to sleep well before Sophia had bumbled her way through whatever forms she was required to fill out as a Ward.

One advantage to being an independent hero the PRT never mentioned.

She was asleep in her own bed just over half an hour later.

_

Hours later in the middle of the graveyard shift Deputy PRT Director Rennick read the Wards after action reports taken on the way to the hospital where Panacea was before she went home for the evening.

Supplemented by video from the BBPD cameras as well as the convenience store's own footage gave them an excellent overview of what happened.

New power armor Tinker Trainwreck used jumper cables as an improvised cat-o-nine-tails versus Shadow Stalker.

She was faked out by the car battery hidden in his fist, thought the cables up his arm were attached.

Kid Win was double teamed by Squealer who ran over a fire hydrant which gave Moist plenty of water to work with.

Even though his Hoverboard was barely attached to his back it stayed on under the hydrokinetic assault, but he did lose one hard light pistol, the one out of its holster.

So far no success in tracking the Wards' stolen equipment.

Deputy Director Rennick sipped his coffee and typed his own reports, assigned preliminary power rankings for Trainwreck and pulled together other reports of increased Merchant activity, especially the rumored new insect Master mercenary.

ABB and E88 would see the increase in membership as an escalation and act accordingly.

Have to schedule extra patrols this weekend... Shit, that goddamn mandatory Dance thing was the day after tomorrow.

Just have to stack the deck with as many Wards tonight, tomorrow morning, and Saturday to free up the Protectorate capes to deal with it.

He scheduled a PRT representative to go to Anders Memorial Hospital and follow up on the reported muscular rogue who self-healed in the ER, try to get to him before the gangs recruited him.

Too bad Miss Militia had to reinforce Kid Win and Shadow Stalker instead of doing new cape outreach so now the trail had grown cold.

Just our luck he'd end up in one of the gangs, or worse in the Merchants and delude Skidmark he had enough firepower to take a run at E88.

He uploaded the first draft to the server and went to refill his coffee mug before editing his report to send to Director Piggot .

_

Timeline A: Coil's computer chimed as he received an automatic download of Deputy Director Rennick's report from the backdoor he'd had Tattletale hack into the PRT systems for him. It made for fascinating reading.

Timeline B: Thomas Calvert rolled over and went back to sleep. 


	13. Chapter 13

Gaiatsu 2.5

It was another perfect start to her school day.

Taylor had just taken a picture in the school office to cement any subsequent pictures from the disposable camera in her pocket in time and place.

Then it happened.

A tap on her left shoulder to made Taylor turn and look, momentarily confused that there was no one there. An explosion of pain filled her universe when an elbow smashed into the side of her head. She stumbled away from the unexpected blow, tripped over something and was shoved headfirst into a garbage can at the juncture of two hallways. A quick lift and Taylor's face was buried in trash, her legs flailed helplessly up in the air.

With a scowl Sophia stared down any potential witnesses, watched their eyes flick away from her own as they all broke eye contact one by one. Sophia basked in her return to power over these pitiful losers, until some upperclassmen Track Team members walked around the corner. She knew they would rat her out to Jesse if she beat down Hebert a little more so she sprinted up the stairs three at a time to her in-school suspension.

It felt good to blow off a little steam after being ambushed by the Merchants last night.

 _"What kind of asshole junk-robot makes a whip out of jumper cables, anyway?"_ Sophia thought.

At least the PRT vans had dropped them off at Anders Memorial where Panacea was finishing up her rounds. The New Wave cape had healed Kid Win and her before leaving for the night, with the usual blah, blah, blah; eat more and build more muscle over the next three days. No clue why the girl had babbled at her about Lyme Disease for so long though.

As soon as Sophia got home last night she choked down an entire package of sliced turkey and rummaged in the hiding place on top of her closet door to give herself an injection before bed.

" _Hey, if one boost is good, then more is better, right?_ " Sophia thought as she drifted off to sleep.

The needle and bottle of steroids lay on her nightstand for her next injection when she woke up. The all too familiar 'roid rage was upon her by the time she got to school and spotted Hebert in the hall. With her back turned, oblivious, it was too perfect to pass up.

As Sophia entered the in-school suspension room she thought, _"Maybe I can goad Kenny the Skinhead into arm wrestling and make tomorrow be 'leg day' instead..."_

By the time Taylor had ungracefully extracted herself from the garbage can the bell rang for first period. With practically empty hallways she cleaned herself off as she walked and was grateful the garbage can held mostly paper at this time of day and not half-eaten food like it would later.

She apologized to Mrs. Knott and took her desk in the computer class and reached out with her senses to her insects while she worked on the assignment.

Taylor fumed silently as her thoughts raced,. _"How the hell had Sophia got rid of that tick? It had been buried all the way under her skin for weeks, why had bitchcakes decided to do something about it now? I guess I probably should have stuck around longer last night to see what happened in the aftermath. I also shouldn't have fed the rest of the ticks to her Black Widows, now I have to find more before I can tag Sophia again."_

In the third floor detention room, her bugs confirmed it was Sophia by the sagging sock elastic. The tick Taylor had used to track her was nowhere to be found. The situation was like the computer problem Mrs. Knott had assigned, too much depended on a single point of failure. Taylor had grown too used to noting Sophia by the only tick in her range so that when it was gone she merged into the crowd, overlooked and effectively invisible.

Taylor mentally sorted through the bugs in her range and didn't even find any ticks on a mangy dog who accompanied a homeless guy dumpster diving behind the school kitchen. Too bad she couldn't conceive of a vector to get his master's tapeworm into Sophia as well. However his crabs infestation would find its way to Sophia by way of the exercise gear in her gym locker before the end of the school day. Taylor would have to swing by Sophia's house and set the crotch crickets to breed once the infestation had set in so she would always have a secondary way to tell where Sophia was from now on.

If only she could find another tick...

Taylor had made it to World Affairs class before Mr. Gladly again. From the hallway she heard a guy say, "Hey, Boo-Boo Buttsu..."

Madison interrupted him in a slow sarcastic monotone, "Oh... Take... Me... You... (yawn) Stallion... Take... Me... Now."

"Uh, what?" he replied urbanely.

"OK, studmuffin," Madison said venomously, "If that's what you want, whip it out, right here, right now."

"Um. Listen, I..." he began apologetically.

"No? Then go back to dating Rosie Palm and her five sisters," Madison interrupted with an over-exaggerated wave of her hand, "using such a deathgrip you'll end up looking like a lopsided Popeye!"

"But I didn't..."

"No, you DIDN'T. Guess what, I DIDN'T either. It was an April Fool's day joke. LAST. WEEK. Acknowledge. Move on."

"I'm not..."

"You're not going to harass me anymore?" Madison pointed at the boy and said sweetly, "Oh, so kind of you."

Madison pointed at him with her left hand as well and said, "But if you keep it up, I'll tell everyone you claimed that... **_this_** ," she pointed both index fingers to the sky as she brought her curled fingers into contact, "was ten inches."

The erstwhile bandwagon-jumping bully paled in terror and tried to apologize, "OK, Ok, ok, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

While the socially defeated boy retreated to his desk, Julia high-fived Madison and said, "Oh my god, that gets better every time you do it."

"Wait until I break out some of the lines from _Real Genius_ and _Pump Up the Volume_ ," Madison said, "I'm so glad my Mom showed me clips from those movies after I asked for her advice on how to handle this."

At lunch Emma wouldn't shut up about this fashion shoot she had last night and how _'Phillippe loved the new haircut'_ and on and on about other fashion minutiae. Julia and Madison were just part of the gathering as Emma held court, Madison fed her a line or asked a question which kept the topic of Emma's conversation focused on Emma. It was practically a lesson in how to ingratiate oneself to a narcissist.

Sophia had skipped lunch and remained upstairs in detention and was in the middle of a tricep dip competition against her fellow delinquents.

 _"How the hell did everything I've set up against them come crashing down already?"_ Taylor thought frustratedly. The rest of the school day dragged on interminably, she longingly awaited her Dad to finally fall asleep so she could put on her Butterfly costume and take out her frustrations on the criminal element somewhere in town.

Butterfly had jogged across that vague line which separated gang territories a few minutes ago when insects at the edge of the range detected something odd.

Two men in suits were trying to force open a locked door at an otherwise nondescript windowless building with several expensive cars parked in front of it.

As her bugs investigated further they entered an area where sounds were deadened and some quality of the air itself apparently thickened into a miasma, somehow slightly more difficult for her bugs to move through it.

Electrical junction boxes on the back of the building had the same swampy effect cloaking them as well as security cameras positioned at the ends of the alley behind the building.

Oddest of all were the armored lizard-horses or buffalo-dinosaurs and a human form who waited in that alley.

She could detect from a few of the bugs inside a moving bubble devoid of whatever shrouded the rest of the interior of the building.

Inside that bubble were three people who each carried a bag or two as they strode purposefully toward the rear exit and deftly avoided whoever groped their way near their bubble.

Grue guided Regent and Tattletale past guards and gamblers as they made their way out of the Casino they had just robbed. Tattletale shifted the full bag to a more comfortable position on her shoulders and brushed a fly away from her face.

 _A bug had landed on each of them. Bugs on furniture in the room to delineate space, Bugs keeping pace with them as they walked, Insects under Master control…_

Tattletale said, "Regent, scan the roofs as we exit. That cape, the Merchant's mercenary I told you about is out there."

"Roger, dodger."

Butterfly walked in a crouch across the roof as quietly as she could after she climbed up the fire escape on the side of the building and finally got a look at the alley below with her own eyes.

Tendrils of darkness oozed around a doorframe and enveloped the lights in the alley save for the bulb over the door itself, suddenly kicked open noiselessly by a well built young black man who carried two large duffel bags.

She leaned forward to get a better look at his companions, a masked young woman in an evening dress with her hair up and a slighter man in a mask.

The thinner guy glanced her way right when her calves spasmed which caused her to pitch forward and fall gracelessly off the two storey building to land painfully amidst a heap of garbage bags piled in a dumpster.

Butterfly flailed in the darkness which now surrounded her as she struggled to get to her feet in the odd enveloping blackout, the bugs she had placed on the robbers moved her way rapidly.

Her swarms moved to attack them even one of the huge mutated things body checked the dumpster she was in into the wall behind her. She was knocked back into the garbage bags split open by her fall as she sensed the gargantuan animals as their riders goaded them to run further away.

Butterfly still felt the effects of that fall in earnest as she cautiously forced her aching body out of the alley which was still cloaked by the cloying, pervasive darkness. Her bugs sensed Casino guards with submachine guns venture out into the enshrouded area, yet even in her injured state Butterfly avoided them and turned the corner to make her own getaway.

At least they weren't firing blindly and... too late, they actually _were_ shooting at each other in the sound-enveloping darkness. She sensed two fall prone, probably shot, while three others pulled their triggers and aimlessly sprayed bullets to ricochet in the darkened alley.

Butterfly limped away from the just-robbed Casino and dug in her storage compartment for painkillers in her First Aid kit. The long slog back home would be excruciating without them, and it was still early enough that she considered it worth the risk to catch a bus most of the way home. A twist and pull removed the plug for the hole she'd drilled through her mask. She placed the pill inside the end of the straw, an ersatz proboscis, she fit through her mask, swallowed the pill and leaned her free hand on the brick wall as she drank from the small bottle of water taken from her storage compartment.

A disturbance at the far end of the narrow road in front of her moved aside bugs without her control, just barely nudging them out of the way. Her head snapped up, but she wasn't sure she saw anything as she sensed… whatever it was disappear again while the insects it had displaced were hardly perturbed when whatever it had been appeared in the first place.

 _"_ _Oh crap,"_ she thought, _"It's Oni Lee…"_

Then the same thing happened close to the edge of her range a few blocks behind her, she sensed him raise a hand to his ear as if he talked to someone by radio but he'd disappeared again before she could turn to look.

She discarded the water bottle, scrambled for her pepper spray and forced herself to move ahead faster despite her pain. A shock of adrenalin flooded her body as she prepared for another fight against the homicidal teleporter, but without backup this time.

 _"_ _I don't know what's worse, if he thinks I had something to do with the robbery or if he doesn't,"_ She didn't know if which she dreaded more; the possibility of torture for information or just being killed summarily because she didn't know anything.

Once was happenstance. Twice is coincidence, Three times is enemy action, the old saying goes. This was confirmed as she sensed another disturbance shift her bugs on the far side of the office park on the opposite side of the road.

Fear gripped her guts as she thought, _"He's toying with me…"_ and considered whether to draw her collapsible baton or that large hunting knife.

He spoke again, but she couldn't make out what he said with her dispersed insects over two and a half blocks away.

What she _could_ hear was a muffled yet dreadfully familiar voice answer "OK, got her centered in my sights." from her swarms a not even a block away above and behind her.

 _"_ _Oh no… no, no, no, no, no…."_ Taylor's mind froze as her pepper spray dropped from her limp fingers.

Dauntless teleported into the vacant street beside her, walked toward her slowly with a glowing shield held defensively before him while he gestured toward her with a raised Arclance and said, " You would be Butterfly, I presume?"

"Butterfly, really?" her swarms heard Shadow Stalker mutter. "I ought to shoot her just for picking such a candy-ass name."

With the Protectorates' rising star in front of her, as her unknowing school bully pointed a loaded crossbow at her back she thought, _"This day just keeps on sucking more than the Hoover test facility."_


	14. Chapter 14

Gaiatsu 2.6  
 _"Goddamn Merchants can't keep their mouths shut I guess."_ Taylor thought.

Her mind raced about how to best play the situation. Some part of her even wanted to try and fight her way out of this scenario.

She imagined in the aftermath of violence as she attempted to explain that she'd had a really bad day. From getting tripped off of a two storey building, almost being shot, dealing with Oni Lee and then just her life in general... She certainly wasn't in a particularly talkative mood. She wondered at what point during that screed she'd be hit with containment foam and carted away.

Instead should she be confident, try and play up the professional mercenary aspect? Perhaps use humor to portray a ditzy façade which categorized her as unthreatening?

She decided to downplay, deflect, and defuse the situation instead. She slumped her shoulders with a dramatic sigh said, "Yes, I'm Butterfly. Long story, but I had to head off other choices that were worse."

"We heard rumors of a new cape from informants on the street," said Dauntless, "A Merchant bug controller."

"I'm not in the Merchants, I'm an independent Hero." Butterfly said.

Insects around Shadow Stalker's hidden perch heard a snort of derision, _"Liar."_

"You know, the Protectorate offers addiction rehabilitation services to former gang members," Dauntless said.

Shadow Stalker murmured under her breath, _"Stomp her druggie little face in, already."_

Butterfly raised her palms placatingly, "Not an addict, not a Merchant, just got pulled in when it all went down."

"So, might be a mercenary, might belong to the Merchants. Care to explain?'

 _"Just string her along and we'll track her back to the rest of the addicts."_ Shadow Stalker said.

Dauntless raised his shield arm and tapped a pattern against his helmet. Shadow Stalker's commentary to him cut out, but I could still hear it through the bugs around her impromptu snipers nest.

Glad she hadn't poisoned the well with a bad joke answer like, _"Would you believe, 'Her Megalomaniac Highness, Supreme Empress of the Swarm' was already taken?"_ Taylor would have bet money that Sophia would have just shot her in the back on general principles.

Butterfly considered her answer carefully, "The Merchants... It wasn't joining them so much as trying to survive against Oni Lee when they turned up and fought him too. More like 'Any port in a storm', or 'Needs must as the Devil drives'."

 _"Or it takes scum to know scum."_ interjected Shadow Stalker.

Dauntless lowered his shield, rested his Arclance against his shoulder and said, "Or 'The enemy of my enemy'…"

"…is my enemy's enemy. No more, no less." Butterfly interrupted, glad she remembered #29 of a list she had read while she researched mercenaries on the computer.

Dauntless said "I'm just...very confused that you were willing to help a gang of what are literally disease-ridden drug addicts infamous for mugging people and hooking them on addictive drugs to expand their client base. There's...kind of a reason the Merchants are regarded as the lowest of the low, scum by even human-trafficking or racist thug drug-dealer standards."

Butterfly explained, "I didn't want to help them, I just don't like the idea of ANYONE dying, and everyone there was extremely close to getting sliced up by Oni Lee. It's the same reason I carry epi-pens with all the time, because there might just be that one time where they are needed. I even used one on a guy afterwards who had trouble breathing."

 _"Dumbass just placed herself at the scene,"_ Shadow Stalker said _, "keep her talking and see what other crimes she admits to."_

"Aptly put," Dauntless replied and inclined his head, "and as for the mercenary part of it?"

"Technically true, I guess," Butterfly said, "After Oni Lee ran off they made an assumption based on the quality of my costume even though it was my first night out. It seemed safest to go along with it and let them throw money at me rather than start up another fight against 4 capes and all their henchmen just seemed wrong at the time."

 _"Bullshit. Then why did you accept payment and NOT take them down once Oni Lee fled? You had the opportunity to didn't you? Besides, beating them up and taking their money isn't mugging if they are villains."_ Shadow Stalker opined.

She would never have even thought to seriously consider joining the Merchants. Right now she envisioned herself as an independent hero, kind-of mercenary and the only confirmed drug abuser in her day to day life was currently denigrating _other_ drug abusers as unworthy to live while pointing loaded a weapon at her back. Taylor considered the irony and hypocrisy of it all, culminating in that moment when she realized that the drug peddling, diseased addict supervillains were better people than Sophia.

Dauntless said, "I get that you're still coming to grips with what happened. That's why having a support system like the Wards is so worthwhile."

"Like I said, I didn't expect so many repercussions from a first night out in costume," Butterfly said.

Shadow Stalker scoffed, _"She's paid by disgusting drug-peddlers, how long until she also forces their shit on men, women, and children whenever she can. You know, addicting them against their will and all that? I'd rather have a quick death."_

"Well, since you're new you can get compensated for returning stolen goods or a keep a portion of confiscated money through the spoils system once you fill out the paperwork at the PRT offices." Dauntless explained. "It's not the Wild West, though, so don't just take anything not nailed down and leave the claw hammer at home."

"Oh, OK… and now that you know I'm not a villain, can you get Shadow Stalker to stop her William Tell impression?" Butterfly gestured over her shoulder behind her. "I don't have an apple on my head."

Shadow Stalker noticed bugs form a smiley face and the word ' **HI** ' on the ledge in front of her from where she took cover behind the chimney. _"A cutesy name, and now_ _ **this**_ _happy horseshit?"_ she thought disgustedly.

"How did you know she was there?" Dauntless asked.

"I noticed your teleporting around pushed away my bugs, and half panicked when I thought it might be Oni Lee. I only noticed her up there when I was searching for where he might be lurking," Butterfly lied. "Besides, once I saw you were heroes I knew you wouldn't shoot me without probable cause, like if I pulled a weapon or something, which is why I dropped my pepper spray. Mind if I pick it up now?"

"Certainly, as long as you're putting it away," the Protectorate hero said, "After talking to you, you don't seem like the type to pull a weapon in front of the authorities."  
Shadow Stalker dropped down across the gap between buildings as she flickered in and out of her Breaker state and said, "So what's Merchant scum like you doing out here in ABB turf anyway?"

She could see correcting this misconception being a recurring theme throughout her cape career.

"I AM NOT A MERCHANT! I was keeping Oni Lee from trying to _kill_ me. That doing so helped the Merchants was an unintended side-effect."

Butterfly placed her pepper spray back into her storage compartment and pointed to the unnaturally dark alley a block or so behind her and said, "I stumbled across a robbery in progress. A Casino was being robbed over that way, and I got slammed into a dumpster by buffalo-dinosaur things ridden by three people in eveningwear plus a punk rocker chick in masks when I tried to investigate."

"Then you two showed up while I tried to walk it off."

"The BBPD only called in the Undersiders, nothing about a Casino robbery, probably an illegal gang front," Dauntless said, "Let me go scout the area…"

"No need," said Butterfly as she reordered swarms of insects on the brick wall over her head into a map of the surrounding area, "The X's are guys with guns, the O's are the two… no, another guy just caught a bullet, make that three who fell to friendly fire shooting blindly in the darkness, no one else in the alley."

 _"I could use this..."_ Shadow Stalker thought.

Dauntless peered past her to see Grue's darkness persisting in an alley two blocks away and noted the X's moving and asked, "You're making this map in real time? From inside of that darkness? No delay?"

"No delay. And yes, I can sense the bugs under my control inside that darkness."

"Never the best idea to rush in blindly," said Dauntless gesturing to the persistent cloud of Grue's darkness.

Shadow Stalker surreptitiously disconnected her communication gear.

"One of them is groping his way out this end of the alley," Butterfly said, "He's going to appear right…."

A swarm of bugs flew ahead to form two loose crosshairs which lined up outside the preternatural darkness.

Butterfly finished the sentence, "…there."

Dauntless pointed his Arclance through the flying bugs and zapped an arm holding a submachine gun as it emerged from the darkness, an Asian man in a suit collapsed halfway out of the alley, unconscious.

Shadow Stalker scribbled a quick note and palmed the piece of paper while Dauntless was preoccupied securing the unconscious man.

"The other guy wandered back inside the Casino." Butterfly said.

"Shadow Stalker, please inform Butterfly here about the benefits of joining the Wards while I call this in." Dauntless said as he clapped the insect master on the shoulder.

Butterfly winced at the contact, a bruise probably already formed under her costume either from the fall or monstrous sideswipe of the dumpster she had landed in.

"Ouch," Shadow Stalker sympathized as she turned her head and watched Dauntless walk away to place the call, "Well, one perk of joining the Wards is the healthcare. I took a tumble last night and Panacea fixed me up, right as rain."

 _"So_ _ **that's**_ _how she got rid of the tick under her skin_ ," Taylor realized disappointedly, _"and her Breaker form must have prevented the crabs infestation from gaining hold."_

Butterfly said, "So you get to be the cheerleader, 'Rah, rah, rah, Join the Wards', is that it?"

"Fuck that shit," whispered Shadow Stalker who turned to face Butterfly now that Dauntless was out of hearing range, "I want to hire you to tie up a loose end from my own career as a... how'd you put it? 'Independent Hero'."

Butterfly cocked her head in startlement as Shadow Stalker stealthily passed her a folded up piece of paper.

"I thought you cared about me possibly being a Merchant," Butterfly said in low tones.

"I don't. At all. It takes a special kind of idiotic stupidity for the Merchants to sell drugs. Either that or they're just plain bad," Shadow Stalker replied, "I don't give a shit what they're into as long as you don't hang up your mercenary hat just yet."

Taylor wished she had a voice recorder so she could replay this moment of Sophia breaking the law over and over again in more than just her memories. At least the phone number now in her hand would be some evidence.

Butterfly replied, "Yeah, I mean you need to be really evil or stupid to sell people addictive substances like coffee, or cola and don't get me started on how evil chocolate is."

"Smartass." Shadow Stalker said, "Call me later and we can hash out the details. Once my job with you is done I'll tell you the real deal on the Wards."

Dauntless returned and said, "The BBPD are on the way. In the mean time, let me cover a few points about Wards membership Shadow Stalker probably missed..."

 _"Dick,"_ thought Butterfly and Shadow Stalker simultaneously.

Oni Lee surveyed the BBPD cars parked around the Casino from the roof of a neighboring tall apartment block and called Lung.

The kamikaze teleporter told his boss about the Casino heist, Grue's darkness as it evaporated, and that new Merchant cape as she was interviewed by the PRT heroes in the aftermath.

"She shall suffer the fate of all moths that approach flame." Lung intoned gravely.

 **Author's Note** :

If some of this dialogue seems eerily familiar, then you've been paying attention to the comments (across several sites). Thanks to Eternity Dragon – NecroMac \- Akritedes – Clappie – Firethorn \- Shulta \- The Stormbringer \- Omnis \- Drachir \- Hye and the TheUnicorn for having such insightful (or snarky) commentary to mine for gold. Who knew this kind of thing could happen outside of a PHO Interlude? 


	15. Chapter 15

Interlude: Squealer

Squealer luxuriated in the afterglow of a late night celebration with Skidmark at 'counting coup' on another Tinker, even if it was just "Armsmaster Junior". The light breeze across her sweaty, naked body felt good. The box fan which provided the breeze wasn't even plugged in and gave off a faint blue glow where Skidmark had laid down just one layer of force on the blades almost a year ago last summer. Even while stationary, air accelerated off the blades as if they were turning. She had only plugged it in that week it got over 100, but it turned their bedroom into a wind tunnel even on low. The false dawn in the east grew as she triggered armored shutters which doubled as blackout curtains to close and she drifted off to sleep.

It was wake and bake as usual in the early afternoon, better than the hair of the dog that bit you was the craving-crushing first drag of the day. It had been true with cigarettes, and just that much better, in her opinion, when the tabaccy was wacky.

"G'mornin' babe," Alan said as he motioned for Sherrel to pass the pipe.

"I recruited a couple of decent greasemonkeys last night, the usual number of posers, though." Sherrel took back the pipe and inhaled, the illicit pharmaceuticals nicely altered her brain chemistry and she continued, "Oh, hey. That bug Master actually called back. I'll need a couple of grand to throw her way. Got me a present to open later."

Alan exhaled a huge cloud of smoke from his lungs then said, "Hey, it's a cape that's not trying to attack us. Let's be all nice like so she sees what the fuck the Merchants can _really_ do."

He rose from the bed and kicked on a pair of well worn jeans. "I wonder if bug venom would make for a good trip...?"

Sherrel cautioned, "Let's not have a repeat of the banana peel incident, okay hun?"

He snickered at the memory and shrugged on the rest of his clothing then left to tackle the business of the day. Or until something pissed him off enough to arrange an attack in retaliation by the Merchants, that is. Or if he got too blitzed out sampling the latest shipment to do anything useful afterward.

Behind his mask, Skidmark knew everyone thought the Merchants would probably... Not exactly fall apart, but stop functioning if you removed capes like him, Squealer and Mush from the equation. Oh, it would probably get going again, but not for a good long time they would think to themselves, seeing as it's unstructured and probably have no, or very little, paperwork telling of their holdings, money, traders etc. Which means that whoever takes over would have to start over from scratch.

But he smirked since he knew it was all a smokescreen. Look at the shiny distracting capes while the street people picked your metaphorical pocket. Enough junkies just kept circling the drain and yet had enough longevity to never fell all the way into the depths of addiction to keep an institutional memory going. The betting action on Police Department schedules and Protectorate cape patrols was so refined through practice that only Endbringer casualties or big cop fatalities really threw it off. Even then everyone knew the long odds against Armsmaster, one of the original Wards, was a suckers bet.

Otherwise, planned obsolescence was the key. Distribution not going the way it should? Cash flow from a certain neighborhood turned up a little too light on a regular basis? Hook someone else with the skills needed to keep the enterprise going, make 'em train underlings to do their job as they descended deeper into addiction and then there are multiples able to handle the job when they eventually ran themselves into the ground. Funny how folks thought Merchants would grab just anyone. It wasn't just addicting people for kicks, but the right kid of an accountant here or the wife of a long haul trucker there and the administration of the Merchants kept on turning. Delegation via drug addiction; an equilibrium in chaos, but it worked.

Now that Skidmark had left for the day to lean on the appropriate underlings who actually did the amorphous organization behind the Merchants, Sherrel had no more distractions. The imminent Tinker frenzy which tempted her to examine Kid Win's pistol safe under stealth field and reverse engineer whatever she could. Sherrel had started taking drugs to blot out the incessant dreams of building vehicles of aircraft carrier size and larger, only to have a lack of good supplies eternally be her foil and ground her in reality. If only her creations could hold together under the increased strain. It was the story of her life, can't get the quality materials she needs, but can overbuild it to make up for any shortages. Then she'd inevitably run out of whatever she was using as a substitution or need to adjust for the increased mass and have to scale down her ambitions.

Sherrel unlocked a safe and studied Kid Win's hard light pistol. Too bad she couldn't get her hands on that hoverboard, but it just stuck to his back armor like it was nailed there. She disabled the tracker, so at least she could now carry it out of the Stealth Field. The damn thing was harder to crack open than she'd thought. Her mind flooded with technical inspiration as she recognized capacitors there, a step-up transformer, plasma coils, hard light maser focusing array, and recursive attenuation emitters to prevent heat bloom and increase range. With all the efficiencies and miniaturization this thing practically had Armsmaster's fingerprints all over it. IFF interlock for visor targeting. Removable power cell... huh. No locking mechanism or latch to prevent it falling out. Then how did the thing say in there?

For that matter, how did **_any_** of the components stay in place? There were no screws or retaining clips as far as she could see. When Sherrel had to pry the casing open, the battery should have just fallen out, but it hadn't. Closer inspection revealed little induction channels engraved on both edges where it snapped into place. She re-examined the hard light pistol and a similar engraved induction network held all the components in place, very few screws or bolts except through insulating elements. That was what really sparked her interest... a low level structural integrity system aligned and locked the electron valences of separate parts to make the whole thing behave as if it were one piece instead of merely a system of modular components. The modularity thing wouldn't work on one of her vehicles, but they way they attached together and became a strong integrated whole would greatly increase the durability of her designs.

She removed a paper thin panel of conductive plastic which bent slightly under its own weight as she held it aloft with tweezers. But placed back where it belonged and it was as rock solid as cast iron. No engraving adorned the panel, so the effect was contiguous through the material itself.

Sherrel grinned wider than she had in ages. She could copy this structural integrity system and use it to offset the ever present materials deficiencies she was forced to overbuild to handle. Multiple assemblies could combine to make a larger vehicle and it would be stronger than the sum of its parts, the integrated joins as robust as the armored panel right next to it. But in order to scale it up and increase power to a level where it was effectively a stiffening force field conducted throughout the vehicle frame would be a **_massive_** energy suck. That new helicopter engine might run it for a while, but even with the structural integrity boost to keep the turbine blades from self-shattering the compression of the airflow would have to be enormously increased...

Sherrel's gaze fell on the blue glow of the box fan and she became paralyzed by the possibilities as her power shifted into overdrive.

 **Author's Note** : More inclusion of thoughts from comment threads by etincelle047 \- webxro \- rollobeast - Jetsmillion, and anyone I forgot to drag and drop here as inspiration to answer the questions of how the Merchants are still a force to be reckoned with in Brockton Bay, even being the lowlifes that they are.


	16. Chapter 16

morP 3.1

Authors Note: Much like the ancient Rankin/Bass animation of Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit, I overcome my own shortcomings as a writer in this arc by rotoscoping over someone else with _real_ talent! All hail Wildbow, and please forgive the hack job I have performed to mutate his prose to my needs. All rights to Worm are his, all wrongs in this chapter are mine.

Now, Let's get this chapter started: Once upon a fanfic...

 _Principal Blackwell arrived at Winslow High as the pre-dawn light filtered through the clouds. As usual she was the first one into the building. She entered the security code in the office and reset the system to ignore the administrative areas so she could get some work done before the other staff arrived._

Taylor was in agony just getting out of bed after an uncomfortable few hours of attempted sleep, jolted awake by every move of the bruised side of her torso.

She couldn't even blame it on a fictional afterschool assault by Sophia since Shadow Stalker undoubtedly noticed her injuries as Butterfly last night. Taking an absence might also lead Sophia to start connecting her cape identity with her student life, and Taylor in no way wanted to risk that. So a taking more pain relievers to help her tough it out during the school day would have to suffice. Besides, she had that Art Project due today.

She applied new bandages as best she could as she looked in her bedroom vanity mirror. Too bad she couldn't risk using the larger bathroom mirror, but she needed to hide her injuries from her father or he'd go ballistic over Winslow High's failure to halt the bullying against her. A long sleeved brown turtleneck should manage to disguise any spots which bled through, especially under the extra layer of her baggy hooded sweatshirt.

By what she had learned about the Spoils system from Dauntless last night she would lose over half her remaining cash if she filled out all the paperwork and went through the PRT. Or she could keep it and be linked to the Merchants, even if as a Mercenary. Taylor decided to register _after_ she got the payment she had already earned from Squealer.

At least she had found some ticks to tag Sophia again. However, that was a a crutch she didn't need to rely upon. It had come back to bite her in the ass, so she needed to practice identifying people without the shorthand of a specific bug per individual. She would give it a try today and see how it went.

With a sigh as she hobbled downstairs to breakfast she thought, " _At least it's Friday."_

 _"Best day of the week_."

 _"Yeah, right…."_

Sophia entered in-school detention, her last day in this boring as shit hell hole was finally here. No more long boring hours with the rejects of Winslow's lackluster schooling.

She dropped her phone at the teacher's desk and noticed something at her usual seat.

A small, round glass bottle of apple juice.

"Thought I'd forgotten about you, Sophia?"

She wheeled to face the source of the mocking voice, one fist cocked back ready to punch when Jesse stepped aside and said, "Good Morning, Mr. Nelson. How's Sophia been doing? Will we get our star athlete back on Monday?"

The harried teacher answered, 'Yes, um… Jesse, isn't it? Yes, yes, she'll be back to regular classes on Monday."

"Great," the senior glared at Sophia out of the teacher's view, "The entire track team can't _wait_ for her to return to practice soon enough."

Sophia tightened her fist in frustration until her knuckles popped.

Class ended in five minutes and all she could think was, " _My pain medication had definitely worn off_."

Mr. Gladly's World Issues class had finally got to the unit about capes. Now that she was one, it should have been more interesting. But Taylor just couldn't follow along as pain infiltrated her senses and sabotaged her awareness. Twenty minutes to twelve; five minutes left before class ended.

Taylor glanced over her shoulder. Madison sat two rows to my left and two seats back. She was chatting with Julia, as usual. It was difficult as she tried to ignore the aches and pains, but could still feel sweat breaking out on her forehead. A glance up at the clock showed Eleven-forty-three.

"Let me wrap up here," Mr. Gladly said, "Sorry, guys, but there _is_ homework for the weekend…" He continued to lay out the assignment, but the dull aches from her injuries due to her run-in with the Undersiders last night incessantly grew over the course of the class period to require her full attention to keep any further frailties crack her façade.

No way would she even consider taking any pain pills here and reveal a potential weakness under Madison's watchful glare. She needed to go somewhere private and check if any of the bandages had bled through.

The bell rang with a lilting ding-dong, and Taylor was the last one out the door. She couldn't run, but headed up the stairwell as best she could to the third floor to the girl's washroom, the haven she had been sure she'd outgrown the need for.

There were a few girls leaving, which meant there was no wait for a stall to open up. A peek below the partitions showed that there was nobody else in the other stalls. Taylor sat on the lid of the toilet and examined her injured flank as best as she could with a tiny round make-up mirror. A minor miracle, there was no bleeding and no excuse not to dig down for the pills in the bottom of the backpack.

The door of the bathroom banged open and Taylor didn't even have a chance to do more than dry swallow the pills. She realized in her haste to care for her injuries she'd neglected to track anyone with bugs for over an hour. With a feeling of sinking dread she knew that carelessness was about to come back to bite her in the ass.

The noise of the conversation outside her stall was obscured by giggling and the sound of water from the sinks. There was a startling thump on the door, and Taylor not-so-silently hissed at the pain as she involuntary flinched.

"I told you I saw her come in here to hide" one of the girls on the outside, probably Madison, exclaimed with glee, then in response another girl added, "Yeah, do it!"

Taylor abruptly stood up, the shirt fell to cover the bandaged injuries. Rushing for the door, even unlocked it door didn't budge when she pushed.

There were noises from the stalls on either side, then a sound from above. Taylor looked up to see what it was, only to get splashed in the face. Her eyes burned, as she was momentarily blinded by the stinging fluid in her eyes and blurred across her glasses. The familiar taste it as it ran down her nose and mouth.

Apple juice.

Then, a painful impact sent her reeling as a glass bottle shattered where it was hurled against her head.

Diluted blood streamed in rivulets down her face.

 _"Fuck_ _ **this**_ _shit,"_ Taylor angrily thought.

Skittering swarms of insects climbed up inside the walls from the crawlspace beneath Winslow in answer to Taylors' summons.

 _Principal Blackwell hung the phone back on the receiver. Now that the threatened Barnes lawsuit was put to bed, she could use the budget scraped up to better use. Perhaps towards something which would benefit the entire school. She began to ponder what to do with this unexpected surplus when her concentration was broken by the slightly muffled sound of something moving up inside the wall of her office._

 _Eeeeyew._

 _Her decision made, she opened a drawer from her desk to peruse the school district list of preferred subcontractors._


	17. Chapter 17

morP 3.2

Even after the broken glass bottle sliced open her scalp, the deluge of drinks on Taylor's head didn't stop there. Madison and Sophia leaned over the top of the stall, each of them with plastic bottles at the ready to replace the empties they had already discarded. Bent over with her arms shielding her head, Taylor suffered through the liquid assault a second time.

It ran down Taylor's neck and back, her heather grey hooded sweatshirt wetly molded to her shoulders soaked through, and fizzed painfully as it ran through the lacerations under her hair. Taylor pushed against the door again amid sweet and sticky puddles of juice on the floor, but her bruised and bandaged side eliminated any possibility of body-checking the door open with Emma braced against it.

More empty plastic bottles with labels for grape and cranberry juice fell to the ground around me. A bottle of orange soda bounced off my shoulder to splash into the puddle before rolling under the partition and into the next stall. The smell of the fruity drinks and sodas was sickly sweet.

The door swung open, and there stood Madison, Sophia and Emma. Julia leaned in from the side and took a picture with her camera with a flash. The four of them laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world, but the sounds of their amusement barely registered. Julia was shocked by a response in kind as Taylor took a picture of her own.

"Omigawwd!" Julia protested as she blinked away the spots which clouded her vision, "Why'd you do that?"

"I was about to ask you the same thing," Sophia said as she snatched the phone out of Julia's hand, "Delete that. No evidence that points back to us, dumbass."

All that a second attempt to take a picture accomplished was a close-up of a palm through the view finder as Sophia said, "Oh no you don't."

This was followed by a shove which knocked Taylor to collapse back in the stall onto her backpack with a crunch amid the puddles of juice.

As Sophia turned and walked away, she briefly fumbled with the disposable camera. She hissed, and unexpectedly exclaimed, "Ow!" then shook her hand briefly then violently pulled out the film. The tangled ribbon cascaded to the floor behind her and became worthlessly over exposed in the ambient light. Sophia pulled up on the window sash to no effect, then tossed the curled film and empty box clattered into a garbage can.

One big flaw in the camera defense Taylor realized – she had to take manually take the pictures. Hindsight being 20/20 she acknowledged getting a voice recorder would have been a good idea after all. Too late now, though.

Taylor said "You…"

 **BANG!**

Taylor flinched as the door in the next door stall slammed closed right next to her ear.

"You're _fucking_ THIS close to having your _fucking_ head kicked in, snitchy bitch," Sophia growled.

Taylor struggled to control her breathing due to her aching side and decided that now was not the time to try and stand up again.

"You're just lucky these windows are practically painted shut or I'd have chucked that shitty camera out and then thrown you out right after." Sophia ranted.

Taylor didn't trust herself to say anything that wouldn't set Sophia off further, so she kept silent.

"You say anything about this, one _fucking_ word," Sophia snarled as she loomed over the prone Taylor, "and I _will_ throw you out that window…"

Sophia whirled and stalked away, "…and I won't even try to open it this time."

As she left the restroom with a smirk Emma gave a little wave of one hand and said "Buh-bye, Tay-tay."

A slightly stunned Madison recovered her wits enough to pull Julia, who had just stood there staring in shock at what she had just witnessed, out to the hall to follow Sophia and Emma.

The bathroom door slammed shut behind them.

Carefully, Taylor climbed unsteadily to her feet and leaned against the stall for balance. Enough of the swarm under her control had finally made it up the walls and vents inside the three story building or onto the roof from outside that Taylor could push her emotions away from herself and distribute her negative feelings across tens of thousands of bugs.

The one feeling she didn't want to push away was the cold, almost sour sensation in her stomach. Not nausea, but a condensed, determined calculated rage as she approached the sink and rubbed at the smeared, streaky lenses under the running tap.

As she began to clean herself up, Taylor used the bugs in the vents to listen in on the conversation in the hallway outside.

 _"_ _Oh my god, that was great," said Emma, "The perfect end to your week of detention, don't you think?"_

 _Sophia gruffly snorted a reply._

 _"_ _What the hell did she ever do to deserve that?" Julia muttered._

 _"_ _Oh, y'know… Existing. Inhaling. Exhaling. Being too ugly to live, that sort of thing," Madison explained._

 _Sophia said, "The Track Team has started giving me shit, now it's all gonna flow downhill onto her."_

 _"_ _So, you want to come over tonight and hang out, watch bad movies?" Emma asked as the group followed her away from the bathrooms._

 _"_ _I can't," Sophia replied, "I've got that… dance I have to go to tonight. And the rest of my weekend is all booked up."_

 _"_ _Wait, wait, you're going to the dance?" Emma said incredulously._

 _"_ _Believe it or not, yes," Sophia said defeatedly._

 _Emma turned away from Sophia, "How about you, Julia? Got plans for tonight?"_

 _"_ _M..me? I, uh… no, no I was going to go to that dance at Immaculata too," Julia said._

 _"_ _What about you Mads? Got a secret boyfriend at Immaculata we don't know about?"_

 _Madison quipped, "Well, if you knew about him, then he wouldn't be a secret then, would he?"_

 _Emma giggled and said, "Sounds like a plan, then. Go get us a table in the cafeteria before they're all gone, We'll catch up with you in a bit."_

 _After Julia and Madison went down the stairs, Emma asked, "You've never gone to a dance before, why is it so important tonight?"_

 _Sophia let loose a dissatisfied grunt and said, "I have to go to that lame dance for my… evening job. No getting out of it, or it's my ass in a sling."_

 _"_ _Wait. They're forcing you to go to a fucking dance? Let the gangs run around free, this Ward needs a corsage, stat! Seriously?"_

 _"_ _I know. They're gonna pick me up and drop me back at home afterwards, then I got a meet-and-greet with seven year olds first thing in the morning tomorrow."_

 _"_ _Yuck, can't you just drop-kick the little ankle-biters?"_

 _"_ _I wish, but not after last time…"_ Sophia's voice trailed off as Taylor returned focus back to her immediate surroundings.

She noticed her fingers had wrinkled like prunes under the running water, but at least her lenses were merely wet and no longer streaked by juice. A look in the mirror confirmed she looked like she'd been near an exploding hippie with all the various splatters of fruit juice stained her clothes and made her look like a spastic first attempt at tie-dyeing. At least the brown turtleneck only looked wet, but splotches of red, purple and orange speckled her faded jeans like a Jackson Pollock painting.

At least her scalp had stopped bleeding, so she cleaned up the tacky blood on her forehead with wetted paper towels as best she could.

Squadrons of mosquitoes flew though the gap in the window Sophia had managed to open slightly more and attempted to suck the staining liquids out of her clothes to little success.

Taylor gathered her backpack and ignored the sound of her former art project crunching together and looked at her reflection in the mirror, not surprised by the defeated, disheveled countenance looking back at her.

 _"_ _Is this all there is?"_ she thought to herself, _"Try and be a cape, but get beat up for it. Plan retribution at school only for everything to slide back into place as if the events of last week never happened…"_

She hefted her backpack and moved to exit the bathroom, her bugs returned to the crawlspace under the school as she tried to decide what to do next.

Retreat, and let discretion be the better part of valor, catch the first bus home in defeat? Or should she brave the humiliating stares and laughter as she went to the office and see how they would follow through on this latest round of bullying?

No, even if confronted by Principal Blackwell those bitches would probably claim Taylor had dumped the juice all over herself in some pitiful cry for attention. She could just picture Madison playing up the condescending innocent bystander angle, _"…and then she just dumped it all over herself like a crazy person. I think the poor thing needs help."_ It's not like the school would take fingerprints off the bottles or…

Taylor turned and looked at the garbage can near the window.

The camera.

Sophia had unrolled the film, and tossed it in the trash.

Taylor walked up to the dented can, a ribbon of exposed film draped halfway out and looked inside at the disposable camera box on top of the trash.

She reached inside her backpack and removed the plastic sandwich baggie which formerly held her pain pills and turned it inside-out.

Taylor gathered up the ruined film carefully with the baggie, intentionally never touching it with her bare hand then reached into the can and retrieved the disposable camera with the same level of care.

The still factory sealed, unbroken, disposable camera lay inside the baggie, right next to the exposed film which used to be inside of it.

With Sophia's fingerprints all over it, and possibly _inside_ the now empty sealed camera as well.

Not a smoking gun, per se, but one more piece of evidence.

Taylor sealed the baggie, dropped it on top of her ruined art project, lifted her backpack and exited the bathroom.

She remembered an album her father sometimes listened to, not so much since the accident where her mother died

"All in all," Taylor rhythmically muttered, "it's just… another brick in the wall."

A masculine teen voice joined in, "We don' need no educa… _what the hell happened to you?!_?"


	18. Chapter 18

morP 3.3

Jesse walked upstairs to his locker after lunch and passed Sophia laughing with her friends making their way down.

"See you at practice on Monday, Sophia," he said in a friendly manner.

"Yeah, yeah, Monday." Sophia grunted a perfunctory reply and turned back to her friends, "Hey so what are you going to wear to the dance at Immaculata tonight? If I have to go I might as well look good…"

As he reached the top of the stairs and turned down the hall, the Track Team captain overheard some girl quoting the only Pink Floyd song every kid was guaranteed to know.

Jesse turned the corner and joined in, "We don' need no educa… _what the hell happened to you?!_?"

The tall, skinny girl in front of him looked like the Sixties had thrown up on her. Red, purple, and orange stains in haphazard streaks and blotches colored her jeans, hooded sweatshirt, and backpack. Damp hair matted the top of her red-stained scalp, which he suddenly realized wasn't stained at all, but bloody. She looked like she had been in a fight and lost.

The girl looked at him and said three words: "Sophia _FUCKING_ Hess."

"Okay, What did she do?"

"Broke a glass bottle of apple juice on my head and dumped juice on me while I was in a stall."

Jesse was stunned. Hess had managed to use the bottle he'd subtly threatened her with this morning and bully someone else with it. He was impressed and appalled at the same time.

"Why the fuck would she do that to you?"

"She said if she had to take the Track team's shit, it would all flow downhill to me." Taylor replied.

Jesse fumed as his thoughts raced. Hess needed to be taken down a peg or two. Who did she think she was, Alexandria?

He turned to the girl and asked, "So… You know that old saying; 'Don't get mad, get even,' right?".

Taylor nodded.

Jesse realized Sophia was one of those Type A personalities that would benefit from hazing in the long run. To get knocked down, but then have the ones who knocked you down help you back up again. That's what being part of a team meant to him, a group you'd shared adversity with and knew coulkd be counted on when the chips were down. Sophia could be an asshole, but she was _OUR_ asshole, a part of the Track Team and it was past time she learned that.

"Just be at Immaculata tonight at nine and you can watch Hess experience a favorite word of mine." Jesse said.

The tall skinny girl cocked her head quizzically.

"Schadenfreude…"


	19. Chapter 19

morP 3.4

Taylor sat in her seat and tried to will the bus to drive faster. It had taken her a solid month of planning to set up the events on April Fools' Day. How much could she get done in just an afternoon?

Means, Motive and Opportunity. She had all three but the time to act was rapidly running out. The biggest reason Taylor was willing to take action was that the Track Team had something planned and anything she did would get lumped into the blame which accrued on them.

Taylor got home, took some more pain relievers and raced up the stairs. She tried to organize her thoughts while she showered, and had to shampoo three times before all the dried blood and sticky congealed juice came free.

Her biggest problem was deciding how to get the most bang for the buck, what could she carry and not arouse suspicion on the bus?

The bus.

Here she was, planning her mission and she had to factor in taking the bus. Well, it's not like she could wave a wand and have the Butterfly Mobile ™ appear magically, now could she? Taylor scrapped her initial grandiose plans due to the tyranny of logistics and plotted out what else would work.

She exited the shower, toweled her hair dry and made her way to her room. Even though the warmth of the shower had eased her aches and pains, she knew she'd have to bandage herself up before heading out. Finding an outfit which would look OK at the dance under her silk outfit was a chore. However once she had taken some more pain medication, bandaged herself up, and pulled her costume on over the bandages she found that it sort of worked like support hose, only full-body.

The bulky armor panels would have to go, though, as would the chest armor and the rear armor which doubled as her main storage compartment. The integrated shin guards could be covered by her usual baggy pants, as would the elbow pads. Fortunately she had designed the shoulder armor to be removable otherwise she would look like a picture of her mom from the '80's, only without the big hair.

Her burner phones fell out of her storage compartment along with the business card she'd got from Shadow Stalker last night. After some consideration she decided to text the number she'd been given. It initially seemed at cross purposes to what she was about to do to her tonight, but she needed every bit of evidence she could use against Sophia at some point so stringing her along was just a part of the overall strategy. She needed Shadow Stalker to be with her in order to turn around and use that against Sophia, after all.

Even though the limited time she had was ticking away, she couldn't just leave immediately. A teenager out and about during school hours on a Friday just screamed 'Please call the truant officer,' in every language.

Taylor still had to call her father for a cover story now that it was a more realistic time when the bus would actually drop her off at home normally.

 _"_ _Hello, Dockworkers Union, Daniel Hebert speaking. How can I help you?"_

"Hi Dad, I was invited to a dance tonight, and I want to go."

 _"_ _Okay… Who is this boy, and do I need to be worried?"_

"Dad, it's not like that, it's kind of a group thing. A dance for all the dance organizing committees to get together, relax and not miss all the fun running things behind the scenes for a change."

 _"_ _Uh huh. Y'know, Taylor?"_

"Yeah, Dad?"

 _"_ _You can call me and I'll come pick you up anytime. I'll be by the phone all evening, and Taylor?"_

"Yes, Dad?"

 _"_ _It's good to see you getting out and socializing. At this rate I thought I'd never get to do the_ _ **'K'CHUCK'**_ _speech."_

"The **_'K'CHUCK'_** speech?"

 _"_ _Yeah, the one where I ask him 'So you're dating my daughter?' he says 'Yes,' and I work the pump action of the shotgun on my lap, it goes_

 _ **'**_ _ **K'CHUCK'**_ _and I say 'So we understand each other?' while glaring at him."_

"No, Dad. It's not that kind of date."

 _"_ _Too bad, I've been waiting to do that for years."_

"I love you dad."

 _"_ _I love you too Taylor. Have fun and be safe."_

Unfortunately for my father, I only planned on doing the first half of what he just asked me.

Taylor rode many busses as she zigzagged all over town to surreptitiously gather bugs everywhere she went while she bought supplies. Multiple 'close enough' bus trips allowed her to guide the swarms she'd gathered on top of each bus she rode near Immaculata.

It was a mostly uneventful afternoon, except for once where she got off the bus at the hardware store, and a junkie snatched her duffel bag then ran down an alley. The resulting screams when the junkie ran back out of alley screaming about spiders was oddly satisfying.

She had enough time to get a good dinner in and pick up some more pain relievers since the bottle was now empty. Taylor pondered having her bugs liberate a few pills from behinds the counter of the pharmacy across the street when the waitress arrived with her meal.

By the time the sun began to set she had gotten pretty good at guiding her swarms through tunnels, sewers and drains or flying swarms surreptitiously from tree to tree around Immaculata.

Taylor was confident she could pull this off, and even follow up at school on Monday with her swarms that lived under the school.

 _Principal Blackwell straightened her desk just so, gathered her belongings, and reveled in the achievement of one small victory today. As usual, she was the last one to leave the building. She turned her master key in the lock and armed the security system, not for its' regular weekend program, but to allow access to the building tomorrow._

 _The stars had aligned and fortune favored her as the exterminators had an immediate opening in their schedule this weekend. Then during spring break in two weeks they could return and shovel out all the dead bugs and any hatchlings or newcomers which died eating the poisoned carcasses of their fellow insects and do a really thorough cleaning._

 _She steered her car out of the parking lot and drove home feeling satisfied._


	20. Chapter 20

morP 3.5

Taylor technicially arrived at Immaculata after the dance officially started, even though she had directed her swarms in various tasks from a nearby restaurant for at least the last hour and a half. The first visit she'd made to Immaculata earlier in the afternoon where she'd placed the supplies she'd bought up to the roof, had come to fruition with the swarms she had gathered from her travels all over the city. Taylor hid her backpack in the bushes and coordinated mega-swarms on the gymnasium roof from a block or so away. Because the ceiling of the gym was still decorated from an event last week, her teams of roaches and spiders had good cover to set everything up through the duct system.

Taylor had observed groups from different schools arrive with snacks for the refreshment table or the DJ set up.

She planned to pickpocket a Track team member's wallet for ID to plant on roof during the dance if necessary to cover her tracks even further.

Taylor had learned her lesson well from her ordeal at school today and every single person who entered her range was graced with a bug and she was pleased she could keep track of everyone and everything around her. It made it easy for her to slip behind the stage curtains unnoticed and finish the final preparations of what she had planned. Eavesdropping on the Track Team as they had been among the first to arrive to set up their prank had been quite informative.

Missy settled into the regular routine of a shift behind the Console. She forwarded on the text from Sophia that she was on her way.

Most of the Wards had just arrived by an armored diplomatic PRT Limousine and got last minute instructions from their Social Worker in the passenger seat that they would have to stay a minimum of 2 hours to satisfy the Youth Guard requirements.

"Sucks to be you," Vista said through the communication earpieces each of them wore, "but at least you're not stuck running the Console all night just listening to the rest of you having a good time."

Apparently Dennis dashed ahead and held the door open for everyone as he burst into song: watch?v=6w6-bgi5AuA

 _"_ _Secret Agent: Concierge,_

 _Fights crime when he gets the urge._

 _Sings his theme song,_

 _Like a prat._

 _Opens doors,_

 _Just like that._

 _Look Out!_

 _'_ _Cuz he's the Spy-Doorman…"_

Missy wondered if her head hitting the desk was audible over the groans of those actually present while she was on Console duty.

She toggled over to ask Chris privately over the comms, "Any way to get him to stop?"

Chris tapped Dennis on the shoulder and pointed him towards the impressive refreshment tables.

"No way I'm going to pass up _that_ much broken dark chocolate in one place." Dennis said.

Dennis watched the student minding the refreshment tables mutter, "Uh, save some for others, I gotta go…" and dash out of the gym.

A chocolate fountain with skewers for cut fruit, marshmallows and graham crackers graced one table, An iced tub filled with store-brand sodas shared a table with paper bowls and a variety of open bags of chips, and yet another table had a large bowl of cookie dough and numerous small bowls of toppings. A few teens loaded a sheet with their creations into the portable cookie oven next to the table. Dennis took a big scoop of dough and whacked it down into the bowl of dark chocolate, brought it to his mouth like a popsicle and chewed happily.

Dennis noticed a couple of girls not from Arcadia stare at him as if he had grown another head.

"What?" Dennis mumbled with a full mouth.

"That's brilliant!" one of them said and then smacked her own spoon into multiple bowls of toppings.

"You two forgot to fill out your name and school," said a blonde haired, blue eyed girl wearing an Immaculata school uniform who held a marker in one hand and empty name tags in the other.

"Oh, um… I'm Chris, and he's Dennis, from Arcadia."

After filling out the name tags, the girl handed them out and said "I'm Elisabeth Vanhousen. Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too. So how did this 'morP' get started anyway?" Chris asked as Dennis took another bite.

Elisabeth answered, "It's a no pressure dance for all the behind-the-scenes organizers to be able to relax. The 'reverse of Prom' in the middle of Prom season with not-so-serious awards." Elisabeth explained furtheras she flicked the ribbon pinned to her blouse, "Any Immaculata student still wearing their school uniform gets a 'Worst Dressed' ribbon as soon as they make it through the doors. It's all in good fun."

"So since you had the gear and an open spot in the calendar," Dennis said, "why not have another party?"

"Yep. After the last dance it all migrated to the teacher's lounge. Mysteriously.'" Elisabeth said with a knowing grin.

Chris asked Elisabeth, "So, how did it turn into an all-district invite?"

Elisabeth explained, "Tuxedos. Dance organizers from different schools complaining about renting Tuxedos, where it cost as much for a month as a one night rental. It was also cheaper to rent the chocolate fountain, cookie oven, and other party hardware for full month with only one damage deposit to scrape together rather than rent everything twice."

Dennis took another bite of the dark chocolate held to his spoon with cookie dough and said, "Hey Chris, watch this."

The redheaded boy made a beeline to a group of girls, most of whom he recognized from a video he had shown Kid Win last week. Sophia had arrived with them, but was split off from the group by an older boy who said, "C'mon, just say 'Hi' to the track teams from other schools, put some 'friendly' in 'friendly competition' for once..."

The scowl on Sophia's face as he led her away betrayed her actual feelings about the situation.

Dennis singled Madison out of the crowd and said, "Hey I loved your video from last week, can I get an autograph?"

"Do you know the one thing to keep in mind if you insult a short girl?" Madison replied with a sly grin.

"No, what's that?"

" _Your_ genitals are at _my_ punching height." Madison lunged forward with her fist, and enjoyed the debacle as Dennis tripped over his own feet in his attempt to get away from the petite pugilist.

Carlos and Chris arrived right as Dennis fell on his butt in front of the clique of girls as they pointed and laughed. Chris muttered, "Don't try this at home, kids, he's a professional idiot."

Carlos helped Dennis back to his feet by a refreshment table, filled a small bowl with chips and said, "Dennis, in the future take your cues from people more grown-up than you. It's too bad Missy's not here to do the job."

Muffled snorting laughter transmitted over everyone's in-ear comms.

Dennis consoled himself with a second scoop of cookie dough coated with a ridiculous amount of dark chocolate.

Chris split off from Dennis to follow after Elisabeth as she walked past in the hope to continue their conversation.

Carlos appeared to consider the chocolate fountain for a moment and asked Dennis, "Do you think it could do that with Nacho cheese instead?"

"That would be awesome," said Dennis, as he kept his actual thoughts hidden. .us/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/stop_penis_erect_

Taylor sneaked out from behind the curtain at the edge of the stage, only to have Emma, of all people, spot her descent down the stairs to the gym floor.

"Oh. My. God." Emma said, "Look what decided to crawl out of its' hole."

The group of girls loosely encircled Taylor, who finally recognized just who had approached her as she guided her swarms to their appointed tasks. Taylor's grimace at the situation was merely an outward sign of her determination to not get blindsided in this way yet again.

It seemed Emma got the wrong impression, because she stepped forward. The group parted to give her room.

"What's the matter, Taylor?" Emma said, "You look upset."

Her words didn't seem to fit the situation. Taylor had maintained her composure through worse than this. for however long they had been at it. What she'd been feeling was more a mixture of frustration and boredom at being mildly distracted from her task than anything else. Taylor opened her mouth to say something, she had a "Fuck you" chambered for just such a situation as this. But before she could even inhale, Emma spoke.

"So upset you're going to cry yourself to sleep for a straight week?" she asked.

The words died in Taylor's throat as she processed Emma's question.

Now, given their shared history, Taylor gaped at Emma, wordless. Her redheaded former friend's smile widened. She had gleefully packed as much cunt into that one sentence as she possibly could.

Taylor thought, _"Fuck me, it almost worked."_ Had she been emotionally drained or beaten down a little more the tears would have flowed from such a simple sentence. She noticed as her power roared to life, her range expanded and even more insects fell under her control. She reveled in it. If she was not focused on how to direct her bugs at the moment, Taylor might have given Emma's words more weight.

"She is! She's crying!" Madison laughed as she mistook the temporary internal focus on her mental power rather than the physical as shoulders slumped in defeat.

Anger, sadness, all other emotions aside from disgust displaced into her swarm, Taylor considered her surroundings and the entire situation.

The track team had subtly steered Sophia closer to the stage to begin the festivities they had in motion. New arrivals, and with a glance Taylor confirmed it was Glory Girl and her boyfriend, took an unusual interest in what was happening around her.

She could give a theatrical yawn, say _"What else you got?"_ and enmesh herself with Emma's bitches coven even further, or she could make a small sacrifice of ego and take her pound of flesh later while Emma was unsuspecting.

Taylor directed a wasp riding in her hair to crawl down and sting the back of her earlobe. She winced in pain and tears flooded her eyes.

"It's like you have a superpower, Emma!" one of the girls tittered.

Taylor interpreted that as volunteering for what came next. She shoved her way through the gathered girls, shoulder checked 'little miss superpowered' on her ass, totally worth the resulting brief spike of pain down her side, and ran out of the gym, down the hall to the outside. With no onlookers around Taylor dried her crocodile tears as she ran around the building to the other entrance so she could watch what was coming with her own eyes.

Back in the gym Taylor thought the high five between Emma and Madison was a bit much, even if she'd only detected through her bugs on them. They were about to learn that the worst enemy is the one who you believed beaten and beneath you, first Sophia's going to find out just how true those words are, and then it was Emma and Madison's turn.

Dean stood there with Victoria on his arm, as his eyes followed the distressed girl leaving in tears and his power sensed swirling faint black/red/sickly greens of her emotions as she ran past and which strangely lingered in the walls around them. Amy and the guy her sister had forced her into bringing was about to ask Dean what was wrong when Dennis brusquely brushed past the couples, to speed walked with purpose and intent out of the gym, one arm cradled protectively against the rebellion in his intestines.

Author's Note: Thanks to Chojomeka for the 'believed beaten and beneath you' quote, above.


	21. Chapter 21

morP 3.6

The clock struck nine.

Taylor had finally made it to the other entrance of the gymnasium and slipped inside. She wanted to see this with her own eyes.

And record it all with her phone, for posterity, of course.

As almost an afterthought, Taylor directed small bugs to infiltrate Emma's hair, bite off follicles at the base to create bald spots once her hair products wore off. It was so tempting to do a reverse-mohawk on her former friend, though.

Madison and the rest of the bitches coven would get theirs in due time. Attacking the seams of their prom dresses would add a Benny Hill flavor to the entire evening, but multiple simultaneous wardrobe malfunctions would be so out of the ordinary as to practically mandate a deep forensic search into why it happened. One little lost insect antennae would firmly point all the blame back at her cape persona, or worse link it to her real identity.

She banished the thought and focused on the control of her bugs as she recorded the events as they unfolded in front of her, her height allowed her to capture it all unobstructed from the far side of the gymnasium from the stage.

Jesse took the steps up the stage two at a time, picked up the microphone stand and walked to center stage as he flicked the switch to 'on' with a squeal of feedback and announced' "Hello everyone, may I have your attention?" to the confusion of almost everyone in the gym.

"First of all, I'm sure for everyone visiting from another school here tonight, let's all thank the students from Immaculata for hosting this great event, am I right?" said Jesse as he applauded into the mike to a spattering answer of applause from the floor.

He motioned to a group of Winslow Track Team members on the floor who pushed Sophia up the stairs of the stage.

Jesse held out his hand for Sophia to join him at the microphone stand. Sophia strode over with a slightly confused look on her face. "Now, just let me mention Sophia here. A great up and comer you may have noticed at the intramural track meets."

Sophia's look of confusion turned into a slight grin at the praise.

Taylor knew the timing of what came next had to be perfect as she set her swarms in motion.

Jesse cleared his throat and said, "You all have **_her_** to thank for replacing the chocolate on the cookie table with Ex Lax."

Sophia's face contorted through multiple emotions as the realization of what he had accused her of sunk in.

"Be sure to thank Sophia personally if you get a chance." With that, Jesse dropped the mike with a hollow echoing boom drowned out by angry muttering by the congregated students.

Taylor aimed for the bug she'd placed on the back of Sophia's belt.

Sophia hostilely turned to Jesse and hissed, "Why the fuck did you set me up like this?"

Jesse answered, "Your hazing? Stepped it up this afternoon, hope you like it…"

Taylor directed her bugs to push one opened pint can of red paint off of the lighting mounted over the gymnasium floor.

A length of surgical rubber tubing duct taped to the can let the weight swing like a pendulum toward the stage.

The rubber tubing stretched under the centripetal force to impact and splash Sophia around her waist and up her torso, then rebound up as the elastic de-stressed to dump the remaining red paint on her head from above.

The reason the timing was so important was because the Track Team had previously placed someone in the rigging directly above the stage who dumped a bucket of Marinara sauce directly down on Sophia's head.

Sounds of surprise and shock intermingled with the hooting and fist pumping of Track Team members clustered around the front of the stage.

A couple of Track Team members who knew what the original plan was stood at the front of the stage in shock at his unexpected turn of events, their plans to spray Sophia with the shaken 2 liter bottles of soda in their hands temporarily forgotten.

Sophia was **_pissed_**.

The only area of the stage in a large radius around her not splattered with paint or tomato sauce was under her own feet.

Sophia leapt to attack, her red-slicked arms shot forward, her hands encircled the boys' throat and Sophia throttled Jesse.

The stupid look on his face gave way to pain and anguish as her strong hands crushed his neck.

With her hands firmly wrapped around his throat she bore him down to the ground and kneed him in the groin.

Repeatedly.

Even through her rage Sophia could hear the reaction of the crowd, even if she couldn't see them in through the glare of the bright glaring lights which flooded the stage.

A Track Team member closest to the assault broke from his stupor, clambered up on stage and tried to pull her off of Jesse and she kicked him in the side of their knee to collapse in pain for his trouble.

To his power Sophia blazed like a dark red star over the most prominent background purple haze of confusion among the crowd.

Dean saw Amy glow red also, slap a palm to her forehead and mutter, "Just ONE sonofabitching night off, is that too much to ask…."

The ebb and flow of the gamut of emotions around him mentally tossed him about like a swimmer caught in a powerful undertow.

Steely blue with determination and overconfidence, his date said, "I got this."

Dean couldn't even get the first syllable past his lips, "N…" before she ascended away from him. A fearful yellow wake followed after her.

Victoria rose into the air from amidst the crowd, her long Prom dress rippled and flowed down and around her legs as she flew forward.

She thought she heard Dean yell something after her, but it was lost among the noisy crowd she flew over.

Two more Track Team members from Winslow dashed up the stairs to rescue their teammate when Glory Girl's emotional manipulation aura affected them, and the rest of the students in the audience.

Their attempts to pull Sophia off of their Team Captain promptly devolved into a full-on brawl as the enraged girl abandoned the beaten and bloodied boy beneath her to deal with the newer threats.

Glory Girl hovered at the stage edge indecisively, her instinct to get stuck in conflicted with her desire to keep her expensive dress from being covered in red, like the combatants on stage were.

"Okay, break it up," She forcefully declared to no effect.

The congregated teens nearby felt the wave of awe and terror of her power crash over them, their base instincts to fight, flee, or freeze triggered without their conscious volition.

Panicked teens ran heedlessly into others who stood their ground and chivalrously defended their dates, which sparked multiple shoving matches which escalated into fights on the floor, spread via Brownian motion.

However, one of evolutions' responses to a life or death situation is to make oneself lighter in order to run away faster. Aided and abetted by the pranksters' choice to replace a bowl of chocolate with one of a stool softener and assisted by a power to induce terror, several people had their biology decide for them that now was the time to drop ballast.

Silk, chiffon, explosive diarrhea and its' associated smells wasn't usually the combination that made for a memorable dance night.

The entire gym erupted into chaos as violence spread, scared students panicked, as groups of stranger from other schools realized hey had few familiar faces among the riot which grew around them.

A streetwise teen pinned his friends arms to his side as he shook him yelled in his face, "Dude, _MAINTAIN!_ "

Islands of calm grew as more level-headed teens attempted to calm their cohorts, with partial success as more belligerent students were swept up in the melee.

Victoria recognized most of the Wards had moved to action. Carlos and her boyfriend fought their way to the stage, Dennis was nowhere to be seen, but Kid Win just stood there gawping at a blonde girl in an Immaculata school uniform as if his brain had crawled out his ear and gone home without him.

"What did you just say?" Chris asked incredulously.

"Hmm? What?" Elisabeth asked.

"What you just said," Chris attempted to clarify, "Did I hear you right?"

"Oh, that… Well, of course if anyone was going to start trouble, it was going to be one of **_THEM_** , now, wasn't it."

 _"Except she didn't say 'THEM' originally,"_ Chris thought to himself, _"I've just spent the last hour trying to get into the pants of a Nazi…"_

Chris regarded Elisabeth in a new light.

 _"Why do all the cute ones have to be crazy?"_ he thought as he moved away to break up a couple of meathead jocks pushing at each other in a macho-off over who had the most testosterone poisoning.

'Why is everyone here crazy?" Chris said as he called on his Wards close combat training to safely interpose himself between the fighting teens.

Taylor focused in on two well-built boys in now red-stained tuxedos who dragged Sophia away from continuing to beat up whoever approached her, a look of recognition in her eyes as she calmed down at last.

She stopped recording, slipped out of the gymnasium doors with a satisfied smirk, and jogged back around the exterior of the building to the entrance closer by the bathrooms.

Through her bugs Taylor sensed people finally manage to calm the fracas on stage, as Glory Girl floated there indecisively as the smell finally reached the heroine. Based on what she could parse together people around the heroine were all agitated and more likely to fight than elsewhere in the gym, her presence was not so subtly making things worse.

Taylor re-entered the other double doors to the gym and moved quickly down the hall to the bathrooms, all the stalls were full as she entered, splashed water on her face and a snatched a paper towel to wipe it off, pivoted, and exited at the same time as she sensed someone leave the boys side.

She was face to face with an uncomfortable looking redheaded boy with a hand held defensively across his abdomen.

"What the hell is happening in there?" Taylor asked him as she wiped the fake tears from her face.

"No clue," he said, "I was, ah… indisposed."

Pairs and groups of students fled past them, a few to the locker rooms in embarrassment, most out of the building as Taylor and the tall, cute redheaded boy made their way into the gym counter to the exiting flow of humanity.

One of the refreshment tables had been overturned, chips of all sorts crushed underfoot against the hardwood floors amongst ice and soda cans, some occasionally leaking in sticky puddles scattered across the floor.

Onstage one of the tuxedoed teens gave aid and assistance to the remnants of Winslow High's Track team smeared, sometimes literally, across the stage. The other one seemed to have an intense conversation with Sophia, most of which could be summed up as:

"Get out of my fucking way, I want to shower this crap off me before it dries."

and

"You can't do that Sophia, the police will need to see the evidence."

"Couldn't happen to a more deserving bitch" Taylor muttered.

"So you go to school with Sophia, I take it?" Dennis inquired.

Taylor decided to let the truth out. It wasn't as if it would make a real difference at this point. She said' "If you can call a year and a half of torment by her 'going to school', then yes.

Dennis asked, "Wait, Sophia bullies you?"

Taylor pointed to fresh scabs under her hair on her scalp, "Does breaking a glass bottle over my head this morning count?"

"What, seriously?"

"Yeah, she punched me in front of a teacher last week and she threatened to throw me out a third story window if I told anyone about her and her friends pouring juice on me today."

"Sophia really did that? I knew she was a bitch, but that's cold…"

Taylor said, "Yeah and the rest of them she arrived with too. How'd you know her?"

"Um…."

"Oh, do you work at the same afterschool job she does?"

"Yeah, that's it." Dennis prevaricated.

Taylor lied, "I figured she'd be at her job and I could get out and enjoy myself away from my regular lack-of social circle. And then they all showed up and it was business as usual."

"Why don't you take this to authorities?"

They had to pause their conversation as the police officers hauled the boys responsible for the pranks out past them

"But we didn't **_do_** the paint thing, that was someone else." one boy in a track suit protested.

" _Riiight_ ," the cop replied, "We'll be on the look-out for a one-armed man. Get moving."

When the parade of police and perpetrators filed past, "That." Taylor said, "That cop's attitude. Accept whatever 'good enough' explanation will wrap things up, not even bother to try and dig down to the truth. THAT'S why I don't take it to the authorities anymore. Easier to believe whatever bullshit story the bullies made up and stick to and my side of the story no longer matters. Plus it's Winslow. Everyone knows shit happens at Winslow. Unless someone tried to set the building on fire they don't care."

"I tried after what happened in January too, but it got buried, and we couldn't afford to sue with my medical bills, so we settled."

"What happened in January?" Dennis asked.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." Taylor said, "As bad as tonight was, what happened to me in January was worse."

"Maybe I..." Dennis began.

"No, the problem is now, and always was Sophia, " Taylor said, "She's been able to get away with murder and no one has really put her feet to the fire or held her accountable until last week when she punched me in front of two teachers so she couldn't palm it off on someone or something else for a change."

'She punched... " Dennis said, "That was you?"

"Yeah, you heard about it at your job, right? I bet she got a slap on the wrist and went back to work as normal, right?"

Dennis considered what this girl had told him. It all appeared to line up with the facts as he knew them.

Dennis pulled out his phone and said, "Look, let me get your number. I will talk to the people I work for and see if we can get more to happen about Sophia, OK?"

After they exchanged phone numbers, Dennis asked, "Can I take a picture of where Sophia broke the bottle over your head?"

"Um, yeah, OK"

"I' promise to show it to Sophia's, to our boss at work as soon as I can." Dennis said.

"Well, at least one thing good might come out of tonight, then," Taylor said.

Dennis went to catch up with his friends, and Taylor figured since she had her phone out anyway, she might as well get in touch with Squealer to get the reward she was owed.


	22. Chapter 22

**Interlude: PHO PRT**

 **Welcome to the Parahumans Online message boards.**  
You are currently logged in, Quietly Competent (Verified PRT Agent)  
You are viewing:  
• Threads you have replied to  
• AND Threads that have new replies  
• OR private message conversations with new replies  
• Thread OP is displayed.  
• Ten posts per page  
• Last ten messages in private message history.  
• Threads and private messages are ordered chronologically.

 **Topic: Mar-28-2011 Discussion: Updated Regulations, Theory Into Practice Thread  
 **In: Boards ► Places ► America ►Government ► PRT ► Verified PRT Agents (Private Board)**  
 **Yes,_THAT_Agent_Snow**** (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (Verified PRT Agent)  
Posted on April 1st, 2011:

Discussion of Updated Regulations and tracking the repercussions of regulation changes published the Week of March 28, 2011.  
Usual confidentiality rules for Private Boards apply.

MUST be a Verified PRT Agent to view discussion, MUST be invited to join discussion.

Log in to Private Sub-Board with alternate Account name and Password below:

 **Account:** ► **AfghanistanBananastand  
Password:►** ************

Access granted to **Verified PRT Agents Private Sub-Board (Private Board)**

 **(Showing page 14 of 14)**

► **Amuse-BoucheDag** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Ahahahahahaaaahaa! Yes! I told you! Get ready to pay up! First AND Worst!

► **Delicate_F'n_Flower** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Dammit, I thought Atlanta would keep the lid on since it's where this bullshit all started in the first place.

► **Abercrombie_N'_Bitch** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

You'll never go broke betting on the lowest common denominator.

► **TabulaDeLaRaza** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

This is only going to end when everything's on fire and someone's lost their hat, isn't it?

► **AntiSocialJusticeWarrior** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Not so fast. NYC is still in the running, thanks to the fabulous stretching powers of our own mischievous Martinette!

Video here.

► **Cast_Iron_Scunthorpe_Problem** (Verified PRT Agent) (Private Board Moderator)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

OK, I'm going to call it.

First fuck-up of the night regarding the 'Wards Must Attend Dances' memo goes to: Amuse-BoucheDag.

First third of the pot down, Most WTF-up and Biggest Fuck-up still to go.

► **KissAss-ive_Aggressive** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011

Well... shit.

► **GoatseInTheSkyWithDiamonds** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Hey, don't go too overboard. We don't want the betting pool shut down before we get to my timezone. Again.

► **SnafuTarfuFubar** (Original Poster) (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Eh, if that happens we'll just roll over the pot like the Skirt Length revocation.

► **AfghanistanBananastand** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Amuse-BoucheDag, you think you're a number one hit? Lemme tell you a little somethin' why YOU ain't shit!

Video here.

 **End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 … 13, 14**

 **(Showing page 15 of 15)**

► **KrispyKremeAbdulJabbar** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Please, please, PLEASE tell me that's one of the wards.

► **Awful-some_Moment** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

...wait...is the track team going to pull a fucking Carrie Prom Night on a **_WARD!?_** And oh shit for once the muckety-mucks have to actually going to do something instead of hope it works out in the end.

► **AfghanistanBananastand** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Yes it is! Our own resident trouble magnet (video here) attracts it yet again.

► **NotMyMonkeys,NotMyCircus** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Oh boy. That was a bad move. For everyone.

► **PoopCasso** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Man, that takes big brass balls to do that, even IF he didn't know she was a Ward.

► **Angst_Hathaway** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Also, guts.

► **Nicotine_Nincompoop** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

On the one hand, god _damn_ this girl has no luck. On the other hand, at least this doesn't mess with her plans for the dance.

See? She's found a guy to cuddle (his _neck_ , but still…)

► **Coach_Platitude** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Mwahahahahaha. FINALLY. Let's hope _this_ time she doesn't perform a Karmic Houdini.

► **Squid_Pro_Quo** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

To be honest, I can see that her getting away with what happened at the dance for a simple reason. She didn't start shit.

► **Insecurity_Guard** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

If she did, I will be most annoyed!

 **End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 … 15, 16  
**

 **(Showing page 16 of 16)**

► **AfghanistanBananastand** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

I was off duty and on-site tonight as a chaperone at Immaculata.

By the time I twigged to what was happening it was too late. Glory Girl had already taken to the air and I was swamped by panicking teenagers.  
Fortunately I avoided the cookie table.

► **SquidProQuo** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Welp... an unexpected twist! Everyone is gonna be at Immaculata...

► **Keyless_Chuck** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

So, let me guess…

'Everybody was Kung Poo Fighting?'

► **Bakini_Birista** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

'That shit was fast as lightning.'

► **Abject_Of_My_Expression** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

'and just a little bit frightening.'

► **Cast_Iron_Scunthorpe_Problem** (Verified PRT Agent) (Private Board Moderator)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Seriously, fuck you old farts and your ancient song lyrics.

That said…

'Whoa~ Ho~o Ho~ (disco pentatonic scale goes here)'

► **Angst_Hathaway** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

What does morP mean? On the banner behind them.

► **Little_Bo_Bleak** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

It's Prom backwards. Just realized it myself.  
 **End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 … 16, 17  
**

 **(Showing page 17 of 17)**

► **AntiSocialJusticeWarrior** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Actually, I'm rather impressed she didn't resort to using her powers.

UNLIKE in Atlanta…

► **Amuse-BoucheDag** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Aww, _somebody's_ boo-boo butthurt.

But, I don't care! Wooooooooo! Still FIRST!

► **Cast_Iron_Scunthorpe_Problem** (Verified PRT Agent) (Private Board Moderator)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

GTG, I have some uninvited company.

► **RanDumbAreSole** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

But the house is such a mess!

► **AfghanistanBananastand** (Verified PRT Agent)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

I gotta tap out too. My on-duty plain clothes counterparts just showed up.

► **You have logged out of the Parahumans Online message boards.**


	23. Chapter 23

morP 3.7 (take 2)

"When clusterfucks meet other clusterfucks to debate which clusterfuck is the biggest clusterfuck, all the clusterfucks will agree tonight was the clusterfuck that proud clusterfuck parents want their newborn baby clusterfucks to be when they grow up."

Chris said to Dennis, "Admit it, you just like saying clusterfuck."

"And you don't?" Dennis replied from where he sat on the curb outside of Immaculata. Three Brockton Bay Police Department cruisers in the parking lot sent red and blue phantasms chaotically chasing around the entire landscape.

"Besides, 'shitstorm' hits a _little_ too close to the mark." Dennis protectively cradled his abdomen with a sigh, the after effects of his earlier purging still made sympathetic echoes in his biology.

"At least you didn't get hit on by a nazi." Chris looked up at the sky and sighed. "Why did she pick me?"

Dennis raised an eyebrow as he twisted to look at Chris.

"Aside from the two who are 'moving up to the big leagues' and weren't forced to be here tonight, just look at the choices available," Dennis pointed to himself and then to each male Ward in turn around the parking lot and said, "Hair color which meant my ancestors were witches, Hispanic AND gay, and finally in a relationship or at this point, _retaliation_ -ship."

"So you tell me," Dennis asked, "who else is 'Becky Honkyngton' going to latch onto?"

"How dare you use logic and reason to make your point," Chris replied with a smirk.

"And that doesn't even count the new guy, who isn't through branding yet, who _also_ doesn't fit into the perfect aryan mold."

Chris let a frustrated sigh escape as he turned to watch the busiest area of activity outside Immaculata.

In the teachers' parking lot next to the school Victoria and Dean kept Amy company by the lone Ambulance to respond. Even from this distance he'd practically memorized her standard speech where she had to tell yet another teenager that no, she couldn't do anything about the impending doom from the laxative they'd ingested. Especially while there were still a few people with actual injuries waiting. It was triage, plain and simple. Fortunately the custodian for Immaculata had stuck around to lock up after the dance and so was able to unlock the rest of the schools bathrooms for immediate use.

Good luck finding an empty stall, though.

The BBPD had the kids from Winslow who had been behind all this in custody. Sophia was among them even though there was video showing her as their target for the evening, despite the righteous ass-kickings she had delivered. She had the back seat of a squad car all to herself despite the overcrowded conditions in the other two cruisers..

The kicker was that even though Sophia had assaulted multiple teens, she squeaked by on a technicality since she had obviously been provoked, although the guy she kneed in the crotch could justifiably say she had not used restraint.

"I bet Piggy's getting ginsu dentures made and custom fitted for the ass-chewing Sophia's going to get tomorrow." Dennis opined.

Carlos walked up to join the conversation, "No, she's going to strike while the iron's hot, bet on it."

"Really?"

"You notice how the Limo hasn't come back for us yet? I bet it's just waiting up the block until Sophia's released from police custody," Carlos ventured.

"Well, speak of the devil…."

Sophia took back her phones from the cops now that they decided to let her go. Neither they, nor any of her Ward teammates who had pulled her out of the fray, had let her clean herself up. 'Evidence,' they said. She was forced to stay in the squad car wrapped in a scratchy blanket while red paint and pasta sauce dried on her until all the Track Team members she beat down got fixed up by Panacea. They even asked her if she wanted to press charges. Press charges? Like she was some _victim_ unable to handle things and seek vengeance for herself, although it would harm them far more than her... the very idea raised her hackles.

She wanted to get her hands Jesse again and keep crushing his windpipe until Panacea got the hint and stopped fixing it.

Sophia noticed there was still no sign of the Wards Social Worker. Here she was, left to twist in the wind by that bitch after all this.

Screw her.

Still, it gave Sophia the opportunity to sneak away from the crowds. That squad car was stuffy, and she felt a little woozy from the paint fumes. With a quick glance around to assure she would be undetected, Sophia used a shadow form assisted leap up to the gymnasium roof. She landed in the blast of exhaust from an air conditioner, and turned herself this way and that as it blew all those gum wrappers, lint, bugs, and most importantly, that disgusting cop car smell off of her while she flickered in and out of her breaker state. An unexpected side benefit to getting away from all those annoying assholes down below.

The red paint itched as it contracted and had pulled her skin while it dried.

Sophia pulled out her personal phone, checked her messages and had an inspiration.

Instead of targeting Grue, she would get that Merchant mercenary Butterfly to hunt down and kill Jesse so none of it got tracked back to her. She ought to have enough cash hidden away that she'd stolen from drug dealers to cover it.

Sophia brought out her phone, pulled up the message Butterfly had sent her this morning and texted a reply with a quick 'Hey, howzit?' then, pressed send. She had typed up the next message with details about where and when to meet up tomorrow when she took a moment to contemplate her surroundings.

Sophia peered beyond the edge of the roof towards the city lights on the horizon, her gaze swept down to the clusters of people in the parking lots below. Farther away unfamiliar students from different schools illuminated themselves in the darkness as they milled about and checked their phones. Closer by she recognized Emma and her friends getting into Mr. Barnes brand new car now that the settlement for their faulty driveway construction had come in. The Wards moved toward the PRT Limo which had just pulled up on the street on the far side of the gym. Sophia knew her time was short, but she paused when she recognized an unexpectedly familiar person weave through the crowds while texting to shelter behind the bushes.

 _"Hebert was here? When the fuck did Loser MacLoser-ton show up?"_ Sophia wondered.

Glow from a phone lit up Hebert's face like a kid with a flashlight under their chin telling ghost stories while camping.

 _"Since when did Hebert have a phone?"_

Sophia knew the wuss had never had one at school. She would have snatched it away from the gangly geek and flushed it, or intentionally missed a three-pointer at a garbage can, or slid it down a crowded hallway like a hockey puck, or sent any of a million potential taunts and torments once they knew the number and could text her regular abuse.

She leaned over the precipice of the gym roof to get a better view. There was Hebert, her torso turned slightly away as she finished texting something, and hit send on her phone. Moments later Sophia's own phone vibrated in her hand. Butterfly had just texted her back. But she couldn't read the mercenary's response until she sent her own message which had been languishing on screen for the past minute while she'd been distracted by Hebert.

Sophia pressed 'send'. Below, the ghoulish light that had illuminated her thin face and too-wide lips went out as Hebert powered off her screen.

Only for it to flare into brightness again, which revealed the quizzical look on Hebert's underlit face.

As Hebert texted just one letter and pressed send, Sophia glanced at her own phone. Butterfly's previous message had asked for a time and location, which her just-sent message had answered.

The phone in Sophia's hand vibrated. Butterfly's response was one letter...

'K'

 _"What the fuck?!"_ Sophia thought.

Glory Girl descended from the sky and hovered next to the air conditioner behind Sophia. The blonde pointed at her and said, "Hey, Dean and sent me up here to tell you if you don't get in the Limo ASAP, I am to carry you there."

"Yeah, yeah," Sophia said with a last backwards glance, "Just let me finish this."

Sophia texted a quick 'KTHXBYE' and pressed send one last time and watched to see what would happen.

Hebert's phone lit up in response yet again.

 _"No goddamn way..."_ Sophia thought.

Glory Girl cleared her throat over-dramatically.

Sophia strode across the roof full of conflicting emotions; angry at herself for being duped, confused about how fucking Hebert was also Butterfly and had managed to pull it all off, and most of all pissed that she couldn't just leap down and kill the bitch _NOW_ with a swift attack, not with Bimbo Barbie floating right there.

But as long as no one else knew that she knew... the 'unwritten rules' could go fuck themselves.

She just had to bide her time and plan out her moves, and do it in spite of the frustration and acidic reaction of her gut to the denied action. But now she had a target, a goal to achieve and the emotions to pack down and use as fuel to power her revenge.

Sophia ghosted to the ground, ducked into the limo, shoved Chris aside unnecessarily, and flopped to a surly rest against the upholstered seat behind the driver.

Dean scooted to one side for Victoria to sit down and said, "You seem upset Sophia..."

The snarling, disgusted glare of contempt Sophia threw his way surpassed even the hag mask of her costume.

"No."

Sophia extricated a congealed gobbet of pasta sauce encrusted with paint from her hair.

"Shit."

A contemptuous flick of her wrist sent the crimson glob in an arc across the interior of the limousine.

"Sherlock."

The resulting red splatter on Deans' tuxedo merely blended with the other stains he had acquired as he had restrained Sophia from further injuring her fellow Winslow students earlier.

"Tell me, O Wizard, O Wise One… what was your first fucking clue?" the paint and pasta sauce stained Ward asked vehemently.

The long ride back to the Protectorate's Rig passed in tense, uncomfortable silence.


	24. Chapter 24

**Welcome to the Parahumans Online message boards.**

You are currently logged in, SpecificProtagonist  
You are viewing:  
• Threads you have replied to  
• AND Threads that have new replies  
• OR private message conversations with new replies  
• Thread OP is displayed.  
• Ten posts per page  
• Last ten messages in private message history.  
• Threads and private messages are ordered chronologically.

 **Topic: Girl ACTUALLY Goes Carrie, Like the Movie** **  
In: Boards ► Places ► America ►Brockton Bay Discussion (Public Board)** **  
AtlanticNorthLeast** (Original Poster)  
Posted on April 8th, 2011:

Watch this and tell me these guys disn't get what was coming to them.

EDIT: Board rules say It's supposed to be cape related. Check out in the video here at 2:37 in where Glory Girl flies abovethe crowd. Happy now?

EDIT 2: Tip o' the hat to XxVoid_CowboyxX for bringing up that video from last week here. Yeah, sure looks like the same girl.

 **(Showing page 1 of 24)**

► **Crap_O'Lantern**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

OMFG WTF is it with shit going down at school dances tonight?

All the NYC Wards crashed a Prom in Costume (Martinette swiping the Prom Queen's crown was LOLs-worthy)

Then there was an explosion at that one in Atlanta, don't know if someone just got their powers or what

And finally here's Young Buck looking like a cocaine fiend (I know they _say_ it was powdered sugar, but come _on_ ….)

► **Window_Of_Negligence**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Did the Wards handlers all take stupid pills or something?

'Cuz nothin' sez "low key, no stress environment" like a dance packed full of teens addled by carbonated hormones and petty dramas fuelled by angst.

► **DoubleDepressoWithExtraFoam**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Here we go. This is going to be _fun!_

 **WolfDog**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

And let the fireworks begin.

► **lahtlali** **  
**Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Oh boy. That was a bad move. For everyone.

 **Commeune** **  
**Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Here comes Carrie!

► **Harry_Reality** **  
**Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Hahahahahaha wow

► **Zhonenmonsta** **  
**Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Look at that guy on the left, you can almost see him thinking: 'Just back away slowly dude, just back away slowly from the crazy people.' It might also save you from any other scary cape that might very well go Carrie on the entire school.

 **Kolchak**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Won't save him from the inevitable shitstorm about to rain down on their heads though.

Edit: How precog of me, I just read the full description under the video about what happened next.

► **Throw'N_Feces_At_Another_Species** (Banned)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

(message deleted)

 **User was banned for this post: Racist commentary will not be tolerated.**

 **XxVoid_CowboyxX** **  
**Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Wow, I didn't go to the dance at Immaculata tonight, I can't believe I missed it!

Hey! I know her, she goes to my school! Check out this video from last week

 **End of Page.** **1** **, 2, 3, 4, 5 … 22, 23, 24**

Madison clicked the link and flinched as she watched the contents of her purse spill to the floor yet again. She stopped the video of her embarrassing performance in the Winslow cafeteria last week from playing any further. Madison was relieved she had not been home in time to react to that video in a more timely fashion. But with so many pages of commentary between the offending link, and where she could join the conversation the impulse to post in her defense was easily quashed.

She leaned back from the computer in thought. The last thing she wanted to do was let anyone close to those mortifying circumstances connect the dots, and even coincidentally link her PHO account with last week's prank video. At least it wasn't the one put to music. Although her own first name was said, it wasn't plastered on a banner which took up the entire screen as it did for Sophia.

Small favors.

Madison flopped back in her chair and stretched her arms to the sky.

"Ow!"

With a firm slap Madison killed the mosquito which had bitten her right in the crook of her left elbow. She looked disgustedly at the blotch of squashed insect anatomy, blood, and clear fluid which smeared her skin and reached for a tissue to wipe up the mess.

So goddamn annoying.

She tossed the tissue into the trashcan next to her desk and continued reading.

 **(Showing page 2 of 25)**

► **AtlanticNorthLeast** (Original Poster)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Huh, lemmee see... Yeah, could be. XxVoid_CowboyxX, I'll add it to th OP

► **XxVoid_CowboyxX** (At Ground Zero: Brockton Bay)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011

Woot! I'm Internet Famous!

► **\n** **n/** **SafetyPunk** **\n** **n/**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011

Wait, wait, wait…

XxVoid CowboyxX didn't go to the dance with the kewl kids?

….ssssssssssssssssssssssssSSSSSShocking.

► **XxVoid_CowboyxX**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011

Dick.

► **Tin_Mother** (Moderator)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011

Don't go down that road...

Only one hundred and fifty three days left to go in your probation, XxVoid_CowboyxX, don't start down that slippery slope now.

► **woo'D'daWabbit** **  
**Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Oooo and the pot stirs. You are all a bad influence on me

 **Zhonenmonsta**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

...now I'm **_interested._**

► **OrganSystem**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Shit is about to get _real_.

► **CitizenSun63**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

SOPHIA! Why do you set your self up always for failure! This cannot in any way end well for you... It doesn't help that as far as you getting dumped on, no one actually cares a single fuck about you! Lol

 **maworker9**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

mm i dont no what to say here but fuck

 **End of Page. 1,** **2** **, 3, 4, 5 … 23, 24, 25**

Madison stopped typing to slap at her elbow yet again. It annoyed her that practically every swat at the mosquitoes was dodged by the acrobatic insects, thereby not doing much good. The area felt kind of numb, so she couldn't even react until it was too late.

Well, Sophia's name had been posted and was now out in the wild. It would be easier to get pee out of a swimming pool than to take that back now. Probably was just a comment by one of the few Winslow track team members who avoided arrest earlier tonight trying to get their own pound of flesh.

While she felt a minor impulse to defend her friend, for right now anything remotely relating to her was just too toxic. As long as they kept on using just Sophia's name and not her own, Madison decided Sophia could have all the attention to herself.

Another mosquito bit her in the crook of her elbow again. It didn't really hurt, or it may have been she just didn't care anymore.

 **(Showing page 3 of 25)**

► **Naidono**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Ex Lax Fountain lol

► **Gohbii**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011

Welp... an unexpected twist! Everyone was at Immaculata...

► **Zhonenmonsta** **  
**Replied on April 8th, 2011:

And likely won't be immaculate for long I thinks.

► **Oop**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Wow, that girl's popularity is going to be through the roof.  
Wait, I'm not sure that's the right word.  
Well, they'll all want to get their hands on her. That's popularity, right?  
Right?

► **Truthor** **  
**Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Do It! If there are no witnesses left alive, no one can report what you've done!

This will probably end horribly, which saddens me. Hopefully the revenge will be at least a little satisfying to make up for being forced onstage and probably be humiliated.

► **Inhandle** **  
**Replied on April 8th, 2011:

This prank has "too many cooks in the kitchen" written all over it. Dude being strangled needs some better conspirators.

 **kittengal**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

This wasn't just poking the bear. This was kicking the bear in the balls, giving it fleas and then laughing at it from 3 feet away.

► **BeardFrown**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Hahahahahahahahahah

► **Harry_Reality**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Hehe well she maybe possibly might be getting ahead now? As in, trying to rip off the one from the guy who set her up.

 **SorcerousSigil_Girl**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

OMG, I just got home from there? Who else was!

 **End of Page. 1, 2,** **3** **, 4, 5 … 23, 24, 25**

Madison clicked past another two pages of what her mother would have called _'Mickey Mouse Roll Call.'_ If only Mr. Barnes had dropped her off first instead of Julie, she might have posted along with everyone else. It was OK to live in the moment, but now she would have to see where the posts of all the various reactions twisted and turned so she could come up with just the right angle to play come Monday. Come up with a fresh perspective so that she wouldn't be just one more echo in the voice of public opinion.

More mosquitoes, apparently drawn by the scent of blood from their crushed comrade, bit her again and again on the same spot. It was annoying, kind of.

She gave up on PHO for the moment, stood up, grabbed her nightshirt, and went down the hall to the bathroom. Once or twice she stumbled and had to place a hand against the wall for balance. Her head felt a little fuzzy. She wondered if someone had spiked the punch bowl like at that dance last Halloween, and she had only noticed it now. Maybe.

It only took her a few minutes to get ready for bed, as she followed her usual routine on autopilot. Her thoughts drifted as she brushed out her hair. She idly remembered overhearing some guys talking at school when they didn't know she could hear. One thing had stuck in her mind, the almost mythical properties they conjured up about the girls locker room off the gym, and how one guy thought about the girls changing clothes inside and said he was so jealous of those lucky walls.

It was so pathetic when she first heard it, but now she couldn't stop giggling at the very thought. How worthless a loser would a guy have to be to wish he was _drywall_? A glance at the light switch made her snort out loud with laughter as she exited and returned to her room.

She made her way back down the hall, and steadied herself with one hand brushing the wall the whole way to stave off vertigo. Madison giggled softly again. The walls in the hall. Those lucky, lucky walls are totally, totally tall.

She plopped down roughly in her chair and continued to read where she left off.

The next mosquito on her arm didn't even bother her at all. She just waved it away, but it came back.

Eh.

 **(Showing page 5 of 26)**

► **woo'D'daWabbit**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Oh no!

► **Salvation931**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Yea, there comes a time when playtime has to end: that time is now.

► **BillyJoeJimPeasant** **  
**Replied on April 8th, 2011:

yes give in to the hate!

► **Ebullient92**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

While I see a number of people cheering for the girl covered in paint here, I'm afraid I can't. The guy she chokes may have gotten a measure of what's coming to him, but there was too much collateral damage for me to be rooting for the girl on this. Too many people who were expecting to have a nice night, one they had earned in their efforts at setting up parties for others, but had their night ruined by laxatives, the shenanigans on stage, or the near riot.

► **Sotsuak** **  
**Replied on April 8th, 2011:

The laxatives were setup by the track team and the riot is due to Glory Girl's involvement. Unless you think the girl on stage was capable of precognition and puppeteering others, she had no way altering those outcomes without endangering herself. Admittedly, she _did_ intensify the bit on stage.

► **Tungsten_Uranus** **  
**Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Also, and I do realize how often it is used as a prank, but I'm pretty sure the Ex Lax thing is illegal

 **Humblehawk**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Wait really, I've got to look this up...

*scrolls through internet*

... Okay, then. I'm just going to lie low for a small bit. Hoping no one realizes that I at least knew of such a thing happening at my school last year.

P.S. For a little more info, the prank backfired off onto the guy who tried it in the first place.

► **Winged_One**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

This is like watching a trainwreck in slow motion and it's either the really fun or the not fun at all kind of trainwreck.

► **Tacitsaga**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

I think that's all of the possible trainwrecks, unless there's some kind of boring ho hum trainwreck I'm not familiar with.

 **Winged_One**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

There are definitely unremarkable trainwrecks; you see the crash coming, but the consequences are neither particularly aggravating nor amusing.

 **End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4,** **5** **… 24, 25, 26**

Everything was kind of floaty and she felt a contented warm, liquidy sensation in her entire body. It was like she just knew that every molecule that comprised her was in perfect synchronicity with the universe. Like how the mosquitoes kept landing on the same spot on her arm. Or the pattern in the speckled plaster on the wall was sort of like one of those pieces of art where a 3d image appears if you stared at it the right way…

Madison shook her had to clear it and skimmed past page after page of conversation, which had somehow turned from being about the dance at Immaculata into a wide ranging discussion about the perils of transporting oil by railcars and the occasional explosive accident versus the rarer sabotage of pipelines. She realized she was barely even reading one word in three as a sensation of contented wellbeing overcame her that felt as if she were wrapped in an electric blanket after playing outside in the snow.

Madison jolted awake as her elbow slipped off the desk and she came within inches of banging her head against the flat surface.

Hmm? When had she logged on to PHO?

Oh, right, right. Got home after the dance and…

Eh. Whatever.

Blearily, she resumed reading.

 **(Showing page 14 of 28)**

► **Blue_Ballroom** (Moderator)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

What in the blue blazes is going on here? Tin_Mother goes away from her keyboard for like fifteen minutes and this forum is _literally_ derailed talking about, of all things, trains derailing.

Users are NOT free to make posts with the intent yelling at people and making them verbal punching bags. I don't care how strongly you feel, you are not helping.

Everyone is to pull their head in and have a damn good think about what they post and why.

► **XxVoid_CowboyxX**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011

Yeesh. How many pages of 'Dudes, I was there' interwoven with a discussion of oil train explosions does it take to get a moderator involved?

 **User received an infraction for this post.**

► **Tin_Mother** (Moderator) **  
**Replied on April 8th, 2011:

I'm back.

XxVoid_CowboyxX, what did the other Moderator _just_ say?

► **PlatonicSolidLad**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. Yes, a lot of collateral, but...Aside from that girl snapping and almost killing someone (which is more on her than anyone else), nobody was in danger of dying.

► **Gohbii** **  
**Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Really? I guess that girl COULD go to the cops now... something about blood everywhere? Because getting deluged in red stuff is more impressive than multiple assault?

► **Lahtlali** **  
**Replied on April 8th, 2011:

She could.

But it appears the girl has run out of fucks and chosen plan B (as in choke-a-bitch).

 **DoubleDepressoWithExtraFoam**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Always nice to see bullies get what they deserve.

► **Bai**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Yes! Hahaha! Fuck you dude! May the cops tear you a new one, that you can show off in Juvie. Well. Not literally, of course.

► **Sotsuak**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

This will end in blood, fire, and tears.

 **WolfDog**  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Come on, KARMA!

 **End of Page. 1, 2, 3… …13,** **14** **, 15… …26, 27, 28**

Madison recognized her focus was shifting in and out, making it practically impossible to read. She must have been more tired than she realized. It felt like her head was stuffed with cotton balls. Every move took conscious effort.

She just skipped to the last page and would post a barely relevant comment and get back to it tomorrow. Read it with a fresh point of view and find out whether the comments tended more towards the sympathetic or the hostile. That would let her know how to handle the situation going forward.

The unexplained euphoria from earlier had faded a little, so she shook her head and powered through.

More mosquitoes landed on her, unnoticed.

 **(Showing page 28 of 28)**

► **Tungsten_Uranus** **  
**Replied on April 8th, 2011:

And she tried to strangle a guy.

► **beedelzed** (Original Poster)  
Replied on April 8th, 2011:

Oh no... Jesse's gonna die, isn't he?

► **Hoohoogrrl** **  
**Replied on April 9th, 2011:

Didn't she break or dislocate another guy's knee when he tried to pull her off the dude she was strangling?

► **Spanktimus_Prime**  
Replied on April 9th, 2011

Nah, that healer chick from New Wave got to him (even if, IMNSHO, he didn't deserve it)

► **LoudlyUnobservant** **  
**Replied on April 9th, 2011:

I can't see this ending well for _anyone_.

 **H.**  
Replied on April 9th, 2011:

It's cause young people are all crazy. He need to look outside his age group. He should totally ask Panacea on a date. Florence Nightingale syndrome for the win!

► **SpecifcProtagonist**  
Replied on April 9th, 2011:

No c'mon... Don't be stupid. As far as you know, she hasn't done anything to him...

► **PreviouslyEarnedWagesOwed_Are_A_FemaleDog**  
Replied on April 9th, 2011:

Well besides... Oh, y'know… Existing. Inhaling. Exhaling. Being too ugly to live, that sort of thing.

Bullies don't HAVE to have a _legitimate_ reason in order to bully, the Bullying itself IS the reason

 **SpecificProtagonist**  
Replied on April 9th, 2011:

 **End of Page. 1, 2, 3… … 26, 27,** **28**

The blinking cursor on screen pulsed silently as Madison sat in front of her computer in the darkness when cold insight cut through the fog in her mind. That last quote seemed really familiar, but she didn't recognize the user name. Since there were kids from every school in Brockton Bay at Immaculata tonight, it made sense to have some unfamiliar names, but that one…

It seemed like a puzzle.

Madison fumbled for a pen and left an illegible scrawl across her notepad as she attempted to write it down. Figure out that screen name. The pen slipped from her grasp only to leave a streak of ink behind before it rattled across her desk to fall to the floor.

Her eyes lagged after the pen, as she turned away from the computer and futilely searched for where it fell in the shadow cast by her desk on the floor. Madison's dulled reactions were insufficient to overcome her momentum as she continued moving, and she pitched off of her chair to collapse face first on the floor.

Madison generated an ever widening patch of drool soaked carpet, oblivious to her surroundings.

From under furniture and out of vents swarms of bugs poured forth.

 **User has been Idle for over one hour. Automatic Log Out.**

► **You have logged out of the Parahumans Online message boards.**

Dramatis Personae:

► **DoubleDepressoWithExtraFoam** JamesBCrazy

 **WolfDog** TigerCat

► **lahtlali** ilalthal

 **Commeune** Asheram

► **Harry_Reality** Draco Oblivion

► **Zhonenmonsta** Chojomeka

 **Kolchak** Night_Stalker

► **woo'D'daWabbit** BretheBabbit

► **OrganSystem** Mechanical

► **CitizenSun63** OperativeRain36

 **maworker9** jdboss1

► **Naidono** Muroshi

► **Oop** Ack

► **Truthor** Consequences

► **Inhandle** outwrangle

 **kittengal** serpentguy

► **BeardFrown** RazorSmile

► **Salvation931** Forsaken139

► **BillyJoeJimPeasant** Kingbob

► **Ebullient92** Deadpan29

► **Sotsuak** Kaustos

► **Tungsten_Uranus** Schielman

 **Humblehawk** Smugraptor

► **winged_one** KaneTW

► **Tacitsaga** Sagacitas

► **B1ue_Ba11room** Sky11ian B1itz

► **PlatonicSolidLad** fractalman

► **Bai** Hye

► **beedelzed** cedeelbe

► **Hoohoogrrl** Wootmannen

► **LoudlyUnobservant** Silently Watches

 **H.** ZecoreZecron

► **PreviouslyEarnedWagesOwed_Are_A_FemaleDog:** Taylor Hebert throwaway account.


	25. Chapter 25

Jishin 4.1

Taylor got off the bus and walked through the dark residential neighborhood. More insects entered into her radius of control as she approached her destination. She saw her target ahead when she detected the bugs she'd planted in Mr. Barnes car as it approached to drop off Madison at home.

She walked across a lawn and crouched out of sight behind some bushes as Mr. Barnes car drove past. Now that Emma was sure to have another hair-loss freak out tomorrow morning and more inevitable fruitless doctors visits and the associated expense she could move on to the next phase of the plan.

Taylor knew she had to keep the pressure on and not lose momentum this time. Before Madison had even undone her seatbelt Taylor sent swarms of insects inside to retrieve the items she had previously stashed there gradually over the course of many weeks of early morning jogs. It was less work than it took to undermine a driveway, anyway.

Madison said goodnight to her parents and clomped up the stairs in her platform shoes. When she powered on her computer, Taylor had already stilled her swarms out of sight. Madison massaged her feet after she removed the cute, but overly tight, foot crushing lifts. Gnats and tiny insects had already flown into her keyboard underneath the keys just like she'd practiced in Ms. Knott's class earlier in the week. Madison logged onto Parahumans Online, Taylor kept track of the girl's keystrokes, leaned her back against a fence where she sat behind some bushes, created a throwaway PHO account, and shadowed what the petite teen was doing on the computer with her own phone.

The first mosquito of many sucked in its liquid cargo and took flight to transfer it to Madison.

Eventually Madison was face down on the floor and Taylor moved her swarms to stage the scene of a drug overdose. It had taken more dosing by mosquito than she had planned until Madison finally fell unconscious.

Insects wrapped and loosely tied a length of surgical tubing around the prone girls left bicep. More bugs maneuvered a large syringe into position and punctured her skin inexpertly, which disguised where so many drug-transporting mosquitoes had landed and injected her over the past hour or so. Other swarms of bugs dragged crumpled paper lunch bags which held samples of all the finest product Winslow's drug pushers had unwillingly and unknowingly donated to the cause one joint or pill at a time.

Even with the knowledge gained as she observed the stoner community at Winslow, Taylor had to admit to herself she didn't know that much about drugs. However, she figured as long as she dosed the girl incrementally and stopped when the petite pest passed out it would be fine. Madison was young and healthy, so there shouldn't be any long lasting after effects. Probably.

One of the faked up paper bags of incriminating evidence included a list of drug dealers with names like Smoothy, Shifty, and D-Money and a schedule when to pick up more 'supply' to distribute along with several old fives, tens and twenties. Taylor had already planned how to complete the frame of Madison as a druggie with the contraband she had pre-positioned behind the girl's locker over the past month.

It was the difference between the possible, the probable, and the practical. When Madison's parents entered her room in the morning, what would they believe? The protestations of their drug-addled daughter spouting denial after denial, or the grim narrative laid out in evidence before their own eyes and literally at their feet. As good parents they would take whatever action to rescue their poor unfortunately rebellious daughter from her pursuit of the life of a drug addict.

All the flyers and brochures for out of town recovery centers and addiction help programs Taylor had stuffed into their mailbox every few mornings while jogging past over the past month had been like planting seeds. Taylor had no doubt that Madison's parents would make the connection and enroll their daughter before the weekend was up and reap what she had sown.

She hefted her backpack filled with the selection of bugs from Immaculata, the ones she hadn't fed to each other immediately after Sophia got splashed with paint and pasta sauce to keep the useful parts of the swarm alive anyway. Her duffel of black widows was also weighed down by the lengths of silk she'd had them braid into strong, useful short lengths to be joined together as needed.

Madison's neighborhood faded from awareness as Taylor walked back home ready to put an end to this day.

Taylor awoke, her body still ached too much to resume her morning jogging routine.

Taylor lay in bed and plotted where her most likely successes and failures from last night would come, and then set up other plans with fallbacks and options to take if setbacks occurred. She had to let the dominoes fall where they may, but now that she had more experience and better ideas, she could better plan ahead for when things didn't go her way.  
Taylor had been caught by Emma's bitches coven just as she was setting up the last bit of the paint pendulum on stage. She had used her own height to estimate where the swing would end up. If only she hadn't had to pop the top off the can of paint with a screwdriver by hand, it all could have gone smoother without exposing herself.

The problem had been that over the previous week she had let up on the pressure and allowed Madison, Emma, and Sophia to adapt to the disruptions she'd worked so hard to arrange and they naturally had pushed back. Sophia's stepped-up threats in the restroom came from her having a week in detention to stew, marinate in her resentment of the situation, and plot and plan her own revenge. Taylor recognized now she had to keep up the pressure and disrupt whatever Sophia tried to come up with. The best defense was a good offense, after all.

Taylor paused, and realized she really had to stop eavesdropping on the history class for jocks taught by the Football Coach. The man couldn't seem to go a minute without a sports metaphor or ten minutes without one athlete or other getting him to segue into reminiscing about his own glory days. There was a reason his nickname was 'The Rock', and it refereed to 'as smart as one' rather than the Earth Aleph action movie star.

A memory from last night intruded into her consciousness, Taylor relived the regret of how she spilled her guts to that redheaded guy, but she'd been caught up in the moment.  
Why had it been so easy to tell a stranger about what was going on in her life, and yet _so_ much harder to talk about the same things with her own father?

She heard the muffled bangs of cookware from downstairs as her father made breakfast.

Taylor was still in her pajamas when she walked downstairs and leaned in the doorway of the kitchen.

"Good morning Taylor," Danny said, "Penny for your thoughts?"

Taylor walked next to refrigerator and dragged the five gallon water bottle half filled with coins across the floor and said, "That ought to cover it."

Danny turned off the burners on the stove. He could tell there was a lot on her mind, and it would be best if she could get it out without being interrupted. The pancakes could wait.

With how much Taylor had been out of the house these past couple of weeks he had finally realized that parenting was more than just making dinner.

Taylor held back tears as she said, "I feel we're not even a family anymore, we're just pretending. Ever since Mom died."

Danny slumped into a chair, the words hit him with more force than any fist ever could.

Danny got misty eyed and explained, "How it felt to have lost your mother, it... it felt like it had pulled the heart out of my chest, threw it on the floor in front of him and stomped on it, then something put it back in and forced him to keep going."

He sighed deeply and said, "After your mother died I had to be your shoulder to cry on when I need one to cry on myself. I had to take responsibility for all the day to day mundane things I had just taken for granted but now could not be ignored. So I just buried myself in attending to all the minor details, only trying to get through five seconds at a time. I removed all the highs and lows of everyday existence because if I felt more up than usual it felt like a betrayal to the memory of your mother, and if I was lower I turned to those same memories and tinged them with sadness. I just couldn't handle the big picture, but that also shrunk my worldview too small to see how it was affecting you."

Danny sniffed, wiped the welled up moisture from his eyes and said, "I guess I can't wallow in old miseries anymore just because they're familiar."

Taylor asked, "How did we get this way?"

"I just became resigned to it all," Danny said, "and resignation is just confirmed desperation."

"Wow, dad… that was existential." Taylor said.

Danny lifted an eyebrow over the top of his glasses a s he looked at her. "You've been taking a Philosophy class in school haven't you?"

Taylor thought of all the classes she'd 'audited' by listening in with her bugs. "Kinda, how'd you know?"

"Something your mother told me once," Danny said as he smirked at the memory, "She said she could always tell the ones in philosophy class, because they were the only ones who used the word 'existential'."

Taylor said, "I wonder what Mom would have said about this."

Danny said, "It's like that song... 'She's gone, tell me how did things go so wrong.'"

"Trust you to quote something with a guitar riff, Dad. It should be 'So it goes'. Vonnegut, it's a little more highbrow." Taylor said.

"Kiddo, it was your mother that was the English Professor, not me."

"Yeah, well I guess I picked up a lot through osmosis, then, didn't I."

"So tell me, what brought this on?" Danny asked.

"I guess the final straw was last night when Emma taunted me in front of her friends with how I cried after Mom's death."

"That's... that's horrible. Emma's... wait a minute, Emma taunted you in front of _her_ friends? Not _your_ friends?"

"No Dad, we haven't been friends since..." Taylor continued on and explained to her father how when she arrived home from Camp almost two years ago things turned for the worse and kept going.

It took quite a while.

"So even after all that, you still went to the dance?" Danny asked, "Why?"

"Enough kids at school were talking about not going, so I figured it would be a chance to at least experience what other schools' students were like." Taylor lied, "It turns out I couldn't escape the worst of Winslow even there because Emma tried to emotionally destroy me, and as I pulled myself together in the bathroom the Winslow Track team dumped paint on a girl onstage, and the place went nuts."

"How did you even know all this if you were in the bathroom?" Danny asked.

"Just try and keep a gym full of teenagers from gossiping afterwards... it can't be done." Taylor said, "I even talked with a boy who found out the hard way there was ex-lax in the snacks."

Danny nodded and asked, "So, this boy you talked to.. was he real or a 'Canadian Boyfriend'?"

Taylor rolled her eyes, "Daaad... His name was Dennis, I think, but he was with his own group."

"Do you want me to come to school on Monday? Help straighten things out?"

"No, I think I've got a pretty good handle on things…"

"Okay, Taylor. I'll support you in this, but trust me enough to ask for help from now on, OK?"

She hugged her Dad. For a long time.

Later in the morning after breakfast and further conversation with her father, Taylor caught the bus to run errands and shop for her cape persona's needs. She felt, not lighter, but cleansed after the morning reconnecting with her Dad. Catharsis was a good thing. Who knew?

She planned to stop at the drug store first and get more painkillers, but she could tough it out until then. Today was all about the future, being prepared and making redundant contingency plans so that what happened to her on Friday at school would never happen again.

Taylor asked at the desk at the Library for the Physician's Desk Reference in order to look up maladies that would fit Emma's symptoms. She included page numbers in her notes to incriminate Emma once Taylor planted them in a laundry basket to be discovered by Emma's mom.

It didn't take too long to type up her list, search online for medical journal articles about the diseases to print out and add to the few she'd already stashed in the ceiling of Emma's house.

It still rankled that she was caught by Emma and her tag-alongs after she went onstage to give her bugs a human sized target, adjust the swing of the pendulum for aim, and remove the top of the paint can for transport by swarm back to the overhead lights. Taylor resolved to practice fine manipulation with her bugs more so that in the future she would be forced to personally take a hand in the same way again.

Perhaps she should practice to figure out a way to sew all the seams on Emma's clothes just a little tighter. That way little miss fashion model would think she was getting fat. It would be a lot of work, but it was something to consider adding to the plans.

Maybe she should see what delights the section on infectious diseases held in store for Emma's soon-to-be-exposed fakery.

After an hour Taylor finished her research at the Library and walked towards the bait and tackle store. She'd had an inspiration that plastic fishing beads to scatter for area denial would be something light, compact, and good to have in an emergency. She could browse the aisles and see what else leapt out and said 'buy me' while she was there.

Taylor left the post office after another bus ride where she had mailed a copied set of all the evidence against her tormentors to herself. As she walked she noted another set of unused voids in the apartment building beside her left by construction. It was probably just easier to drywall over the eighteen inch wide floor to ceiling gap between the bathtub and the sink than it was to figure out how to turn it into useable space.

It was similar to the places as she had used to stash the ghosted camera and further copies of her evidence, at different locations in her neighborhood of course.  
The parable about keeping all your eggs in one basket existed for a reason, after all.

On the bus ride back home Taylor directed her dispersed Black Widows she had made scatter to converge again at her house when she received a text from Squealer. She just woke up? It's after two… The Merchant Tinker wanted to meet Sunday evening, and when tried to get more information, all she got was a text that said, 'got a surprise for ya. L8R'. It looked like she was heading out in costume Sunday night, then.

Taylor knew it would take time to put all the armored panels in her costume back where they belonged. She wanted to watch a movie with her Dad like they had and reconnect a little.

In the meantime she would have her spiders continue to make short lengths of silk rope she could connect as she needed. She could start on a new silk bodysuit for more general wear at school on Monday anyway.

Taylor arrived back home, brought her supplies upstairs, and logged on to Parahumans Online. The original post of the Immaculata thread had been updated.

She clicked the link to the video. An image of Sophia behind a podium in some elementary school classroom filled the pop-up window as the video buffered and downloaded.

When it finally played, from her speakers issued, _"How we treat each other matters…"_ Taylor watched the rest of the speech with an expression of shocked disbelief on her face.

Taylor wondered just how big a gun the PRT had to hold to Sophia's head to force her to go through with that speech? She had missed so much of it when she metaphorically picked her jaw up off the floor she just had to watch it again.


	26. Chapter 26

Author's note: This chapter has been finished for a month, but I have not had any un-interrupted time to get the formatting right.

So my car decided to 'help' me and now I'm sitting in a Mechanic's waiting room and figuring it all out on low-speed wifi and a wanna-be laptop tablet. If you're reading this within a few hours of posting (whoops, my cursor just disapperared) there may be errors.

 **BOLD** text is happening _AFTER_ all of the 'flashbacks' in regular text. It's probably worth reading through twice in one sitting if this chapter is confusing.

Jishin 4.2

 **"What the fuck is** ** _this_** **?" Sophia asked as she angrily stormed back into the Wards' quarters on the Rig. Instead of all the Wards she had expected to be there, the common area was empty except for Dean.**

 **"A way to take your mind off things after your speech," said Dean, "focus on something else so you're not obsessively ruminating until you drive yourself insane."**

 **"I'd rather go to the gym and work out until I'm too tired to think about it." Sophia said while she paced back and forth.**

 **"Can't. Vista's in there with the new guy doing anti-cape scenarios with a couple of PRT squads."**

 **"Plus," Dean ticked off his fingers, "Clockblocker is in Leadership training, god help us, with Triumph and Aegis until our unexpected guest's ride gets here. Kid Win is in his lab tinkering up a storm. We're all banned from electronics so no Console duty, video games, or movies, and I can't call Victoria and so I've got** ** _her_** **needy bitch-out to eventually look forward to."**

 **"So unless you want to do homework…" Dean gestured at the chessboard.**

 **"Nah," Sophia crossed her arms and answered grumpily, "I doubt they want my thousand word essay to just be 'Fuck You' repeated five hundred times."**

 **"We could do checkers, if it's more your speed?"**

 **"…and 'Fuck You' number five hundred and** ** _one_** **." Sophia flopped down in a chair across the table from Dean and said, "Ugh…** ** _fiiiiine_** **. Since you have it set up anyway, okay."**

 **"Great! You can go first." Dean said, with a spin of the board to put the white pieces closest to Sophia.**

 **Dean watched Sophia's aura, and took mental note of her roiling emotions as annoyed streaks of orange gradually blended into the simmering, dark, angry red that Sophia constantly projected, so that he could report back to Director Piggot** **on Shadow Stalker's state of mind after the events from this morning as ordered.**

 ** _1Nf3 Sophia made a bold opening move with her Knight and Dean could see her emotional turmoil as he asked, "Sure didn't expect this after being locked down on the Rig last night…"_**

When the armored limousine pulled away from the dance Friday evening, the first clue of just how serious the Director was about the whole situation was when the vehicle turned not for the PRT HQ downtown, but instead drove downhill towards the Bay. There was none of the usual wait for transit to the Rig, they just drove straight on and were immediately off to their destination.

The waves of the bay reflected light from the city as they moved closer to the Protectorate fortress.

Sophia's thoughts turned to Butterfly. The mercenary she'd just set up a clandestine meet with was actually that loser Taylor Hebert. How the hell had she missed it? How had Hebert pulled the wool over her eyes? That wuss must have set her up in the hallway, goaded her until that punch right in front of two teachers… just like a Master, sneakily weaselly manipulating, never up for direct confrontation. Butterfly also claimed she had been injured by the Undersiders last night, and then today Hebert gimped around like she was hurt.

Sophia considered maybe Hebert used bugs to blackmail the track team against her? Sure, she's a track star, they need her and Hebert's jealous, there's no other reason. _"Why not just swarm me?"_ she thought, _"It's what I'd do. Coward's just not up to it, I guess."_

Sophia's thoughts were interrupted as the limousine transitioned into the hangar deck of the Rig and came to a halt.

 ** _1Nf6 Dean mirrored her opening move and said, "It sucks that the first thing you were ordered to do was to go straight to Medical, but they did need to collect the evidence."_**

As soon as the door to the hallway opened Vista pointed to a basket next to the console which already held her own PRT issued phone and said, "Everyone drop your phones here, Director's orders." When the Wards filed past in order to enter the on-duty area of their quarters Missy singled out the teen hero known as Clockblocker and asked, "Hey Dennis? Were either of your parents previously married?"

The non-sequitur caused him to come to a halt. "No, they've only been married to each other…" he said confusedly.

"Really?" Missy said as she projected video of his ignominious encounter at the dance on the largest monitor, "Because that short girl sure beat you like a red-headed stepchild."

Dennis laughed. "Yes! Misdirection! Clever wordplay! And it was personal, you went there!"

The time-stopping teen gave the distance warping Ward a high-five as the rest of the heroic teens filed in to their quarters.

Sophia faked a stumble over the police blanket still wrapped around her as she approached and ghosted her personal phone through the back of the couch in the common area, dropped her PRT issued phone in the basket and continued on to Medical.

In the examination room the medical technicians scraped the paint and coagulated sauce off of her, which yanked some hair out by the roots in the long, boring process.

"Are we done?" Sophia asked grumpily.

"Yes, you can finally hit the showers." the on-duty doctor told her, "Don't forget to put your clothes in an evidence bag."

"Yeah, yeah..." the sullen teen muttered as she left Medical and the door closed solidly behind her.

The doctor opened the bag of scraped off paint and tomato sauce, extracted as many hairs with tweezers as she could find and placed them into a sample dish. "Take these to the lab for a full toxicity screening. Director's orders."

 ** _2c4 Sophia advanced a Pawn aggressively out into the midfield on the left and said, "I know, but Panacea was right_** **_there, and they kept me away from her while the Track Team got healed up."_**

Sophia dried off and dressed after her shower. Finally one damn pair of socks where the elastic hadn't gone, and they were the ones she practically never wore. Typical.

She expected to join all the other Wards in their quarters, but instead a PRT Agent lurked outside the door and said, "The Director wants you meet with you ASAP. I'm your escort." He held out his hands for the evidence bags Sophia held.

Whatever she did to Hebert she deserved for not standing up for herself. Now that the loser actually was pushing back, it just confirmed her resolve to shove the wuss back down even harder. Sophia could rely on Emma, Madison and the rest in their social orbit for support. What she really wanted was to go dish out some street level justice as a way to let off steam.

Instead she was stuck here.

During the winding walk through the corridors Sophia considered how Piggot and the PRT would go after Jesse and the rest of the Track Team with their full force. Maybe it was a good thing she hadn't irrevocably arranged a hit on that smug asshole.

Yet, anyway.

 ** _2e6 Dean gave his Knight a Pawn wingman and said, "Yes, but then we wouldn't have the physical evidence of what the Track Team did to you, while any injuries from your reactions are long gone thanks to Amy. It looks worse for them that you're still injured."_**

In the Immaculata parking lot, half a dozen Winslow Track Team members were crammed in the back of two police cars. They had languished there uncomfortably for what seemed like hours, their hands cuffed behind them, stuck shoulder to shoulder breathing in the same stale air.

A bulky white van pulled up nearby. People more armored than any SWAT team got out and opened double doors in the back of the van.

Jesse saw one of the cops sign something on a clipboard then walk to the squad car he was in.

"No skin off my nose if you want to take 'em," said the cop as he opened the door right next to Jesse.

A PRT Agent jerked his thumb at the van behind him and said, "You three. Get in."

Jesse asked, "Hey, why are we being handed over to the PRT? There were no capes involved. What the fuck?"

The PRT Agent held his hand out to his partner. An angular rifle with a long yellow lightning bolt on the side slapped into his open palm. A laser targeter slung underneath the ridiculously wide barrel lit up and swung to point at Jesse's crotch.

"This'll put a cape down. Now get in the fuckin' van or I'll cook your dick, motherfucker," the PRT Agent said matter-of-factly.

Jesse got in the fuckin' van.

 ** _3g3 Sophia gave her Knight a Pawn wingman like Dean had done and said, "Those assholes deserved what was coming to them."_**

While she followed the PRT Agent, Sophia ran a hypothetical conversation through in her mind. If she just went to Piggot and said, _'So I think Butterfly goes to Winslow.'_ Piggy would ask _'Why do you think that?'_ Then she would say _'I recognized her in the crowd.'_ _'How did you recognize this Mercenary Merchant scum?'_ her Pigginess would ask. _'She answered my texts when I tried to hire her to assassinate someone for me...'_

Yeah, no.

Sophia knew she would only be free to act only so long as no one suspected she knew Butterfly's identity.

The PRT Agent knocked on the door to a conference room and was immediately replied with a stern voice that said "Enter."

Sophia opened the door to the conference room and entered. Director Piggot stood off to one side as a teleconference camera was set up in front of a monitor.

On that screen was Glenn Chambers.

 ** _3d5 Dean advanced a Pawn to challenge her control of the center of the board and noted the teal of guilt mixed with deep rose of frustration, unusual emotions coming from Sophia as she had apparently remembered something. Perhaps she had just re-lived an unpleasant memory. He said, "C'mon it's not like school can be all that bad, even if it is Winslow..."_**

Jesse awkwardly climbed into the PRT van and sat where another PRT Agent pointed. As his teammates clambered in to take seats beside him, he glanced out the door to see the cops usher the other three Track Team members from a squad car and remove their handcuffs.

"Hey, why are they..." Jesse began to ask before he received a punch in his solar plexus. It felt like all the air vomited out of his lungs all at once as he struggled, and failed, to draw a breath.

Jesse pitched forward involuntarily, only to have the PRT Agent who sat opposite him plant a combat boot against his chest and kick him back into his seat.

"No talking."

The doors closed and the van drove away.

Jesse had managed to resume breathing normally by the time they had arrived at the PRT HQ building downtown.

 ** _4Bg2 "Yeah," Sophia said as she moved her Bishop to support her right flank, "Winslow's not the problem. It's just that I didn't start this shit, but it all hit me just the same. It was all their fault."_**

Sophia considered ghosting through the floor for a moment, but instead stood her ground in front of the teleconference camera and monitor.

On that screen Glenn Chambers wrapped up another conversation on his phone, "…how'd he get the Harley up on the high dive in the first place?"

 ** _4Be7 Dean moved his own Bishop up to a more central position and said, "Y'know, it's like the therapists say, 'When you point a finger in blame, three fingers point back at you'."_**

"Good, good. Well, that's Seattle handled." Glenn said as he put down his phone.

Glenn said, "Come sit down Miss Hess. This little adversity breeds opportunity. With you, we have a chance to sway the court of public opinion to our side."

"What… the hell are you talking about?" Sophia asked confusedly.

"My dear, in my job it's not reality, but the perception of reality that matters." Glenn said.

Sophia said, "Listen, I've had a long night of getting crap dumped on me, just say it more plainly, Yeah?"

Glenn sighed and said, "You're going to turn our lemons into lemonade. Tomorrow morning we're going to have you give a little 'how bullying comes in many packages' anti-hazing speech."

 ** _5 O-O Sophia said, "Oh yeah? How 'bout just one finger then?" as she flipped him off. Then she Castled her king into a strong defensive position._**

"Are you fucking high?!"

Director Piggot looked down her nose at the foul-mouthed Ward and said icily, "Language."

Sophia's voice rose angrily, "There's no goddamn WAY I'm going to agree to have you trot me around in front of the cameras as your little show-pony victim."

"Well, we all have our illusions, far be it from me to take away yours. But..." Glenn paused.

The screen split in two and showed some legal paperwork. Her own signature was circled in red.

Glenn turned his head slightly with a sardonic grin and said, "Your contractual obligations say differently."

 ** _5 O-O Dean also Castled, as he seemed to again mimic Sophia's chess moves. Then he said, "Oooh, touchy. Don't let Victoria see that, it might make her jealous."_**

Glenn straightened and said, "In recognition of the lateness of the hour, let me lay it all out for you, Miss Hess."

"Your speech tomorrow will successfully accomplish multiple goals for the PRT. Ward program outreach. A sympathetic anti-bullying campaign. But most of all it finally gives us something concrete we can use to push back against the bureaucratic overreach of the Youth Guard."

Glenn then leaned back and casually flicked his wrist with each option he mentioned, "Or, if and only if you say no, we could do down the other route. Guard duty outside a Simurgh zone. Rebranding and transfer to another city. There's that new PRT department forming in Alaska looking for new recruits. Or, given your record, there's serving out the rest of your sentence in juvenile hall."

Glenn leaned forward with his elbows on the table, laced his fingers together and rested his chin on them like a hammock, "But before you answer, let me calm your fears. The rumors that you would be sent out on the wall surrounding Ellisburg with a dinner bell around your neck are patently false."

Glenn turned his right palm and shortly after his left palm up and said, "Rock. Hard Place. Your decision, Miss Hess? I still have to read the riot act to all the Wards nationwide and the clock is ticking."

 ** _6b3 Sophia advanced a Pawn on her left and said, "I wasn't bullied or hazed or any of that. Track team dumbshits picked the wrong target is all."_**

Sophia zoned out during the speech broadcast to all the Wards across the country since she already viscerally understood the repercussions. They had her over a barrel, and they knew it. One of the few things that made all the associated Ward bullshit bearable was her social connections at Winslow.

It felt good to be the big fish in a small pond, even **_if_** it overflowed with pond scum.

She had been forced to agree to what they wanted and then hit the hay since it was already after midnight. Even though every other Ward on the continent were locked down as of now, she still had to go to that ankle biters meet and greet tomorrow and give whatever damn speech Glenn Chambers and his battery of PR flacks came up with while she slept.

Except this time the brats would be outnumbered by TV cameras.

Shit.

Sophia slid between the sheets and tried to catch what sleep she could.

 ** _6a5 Dean aggressively countered with a Pawn into the midfield and said, "How dare they consider you a mere mortal, to drag you down to stoop to their level, is that it?"_**

Jesse stepped into the cell bare footed, the blaze orange prison jumpsuit clung to his body in places where he hadn't been able to dry off from whatever that chemical wash was the PRT Agents had put him through. The towel he had been given seemed a step below regular fabric when it came to absorption, not to mention the ten seconds of constant shouts to hurry up had hardly been enough time to dry off in any case.

The door hummed closed and sealed with a series of ominous clacks.

The speaker in the high ceiling blared to life with feedback, "Attention, you are under observation for the next twelve hours as part of Master/Stranger protocols to detect any possible influence. Follow all instructions promptly and answer all questions immediately."

The speaker turned off with another high pitched electronic tone.

Jesse walked over to the thin mattress on a bench of concrete, he wouldn't even dignify it by calling it a bed, and sat down.

He thought he heard some yells, followed by some muffled thumps from the cell next to his, but after a noise like a can of whipped cream going off, the other noises stopped.

He lay down on the plastic wrapped foam rubber and closed his eyes.

Not five seconds later, the speaker in the ceiling loudly blared to life, "Stand and place your hands on the red square on the wall."

On the otherwise blank wall across from him, three illuminated shapes appeared; a blue circle, a green rectangle, and a rosy pink square.

Jesse stood up, placed his hands on the pink square and said, "Like this?"

A multi-barreled turret dropped from the ceiling and swung to point right at him.

The speaker squealed to life again, "I said the RED square!"

Jesse looked around the room and saw a small red square that glowed on the wall behind where he had sat down.

He turned around and put his hands on the red square with a sigh.

"No talking," the speaker blared.

Jesse knew he was in for a long night.

 ** _7Nc3 Sophia brought the Knight on her left flank forward and said, "Nah, the only 'stoop' they had going for them was stup-ID."_**

In the morning Sophia practiced the speech with Miss Militia yet again.

Apparently Glenn Chambers leveraged the Protectorate heroine's perfect memory to his advantage, and to Sophia's detriment.

She had to learn the damn speech word for fucking word, and Miss Militia would pounce on every little mistake. Like saying 'these' instead of 'those' really mattered.

And the worst part was that the Protectorate cape was constantly with her, drilling her on the speech as she got ready for the event.

All while getting dressed, brushing her hair, through the cracked-open bathroom door, even while in the elevator to the hangar. Over and over and over again. No cape and cowl to hide her usual look of disgust she had when dealing with brats, it wasn't her cap identity which had been hazed on stage last night after all.

Sophia sighed with frustration as she realized Miss Militia was going to ride with her and force her to practice all the way there as well.

 ** _7c6 Dean pushed a Pawn forward and said, "Nice turn of phrase. It wasn't in the speech, was it?"_**

Jesse was exhausted, and it seemed like every time he tried to sleep they would wake him up and force him to recite the alphabet backwards, or stand on one foot, or figure out a mathematic word problem, or different variations that kept him from getting any sleep in the tiny cell.

By the time they started using tongue-twisters he knew they were all just fucking with him.

He could tell by the voices there were at least three different PRT Agents taking turns at the microphone.

Maybe it was just the chance to use all the stuff they wouldn't dare if it were Hookwolf or Oni Lee or some other cape in the cell, but since it was just some high school student, they probably figured 'Why the hell not?'

It's what he would have done in their situation. Hell, he even had piled it on like that during Track Team hazing last year.

However, this was different. The turret that followed his every move had unnerved him, and more than a little.

He was so damn tired, though.

He didn't even get completely horizontal before the speaker in the ceiling squawked and yet another command to follow was yelled at him.

Jesse couldn't take it for much longer.

 ** _8d4 Sophia said as she shoved a Pawn in the middle of the board, "Nah, but that speech was a lot harder than I expected."_**

Sophia rode in the car with Miss Militia to the event and pondered how to spin it to her advantage. Once she was up there actually giving the speech she would be able to alter what she decided to say a little.

Make her seem like less of a victim, at least. Say what she would do to the Track Team if they ever pulled something like that again.

Yeah.

 ** _8Nbd7 Dean brought his Knight from the flank to the center and said, "How so?"_**

Deputy Director Rennick reviewed results from the blood testing ordered for all Wards by Director Costa-Brown. For most of the mandated screening of the Wards under their care there were no surprises, but Shadow Stalker's report raised some concerns.

Sophia's toxicity screening was still being worked on in the lab. The tests on her hair follicles would show what, if any, substances she had put into her body over the amount of time her hair had grown. Panacea could reset anything and everything except brains in a body, but she usually didn't touch cosmetic features like hair unless it was part of the injured area.

He pulled up some older reports from Shadow Stalker to look for corroborating evidence of his suspicions.

 ** _9Qc2 Sophia freed up her Queen to strike later and said, "There I was, the only Ward allowed out and about in the whole country…"_**

Sophia plotted how to take down Butterfly now that she knew the cape was actually Taylor Hebert. Maybe she'd just blurt it out during the speech and let the chips fall where they may.

Still, Sophia considered if that she outed Taylor's cape ID, it raised the question of how she knew. It would also raise too many questions about how Sophia used her powers against Taylor, and Juvie's jaws would open wide in anticipation. _'I figured it out when I texted the Merchant's Mercenary to assassinate the teenager who pranked me... y'know, as you do... perfectly normal, perfectly healthy.'_

Yeah. That wouldn't fly.

Then Miss Militia interrupted her thoughts when she said, "Okay, take it from the top..."

Oh god. Not again.

 ** _9b6 Dean advanced a Pawn to support the side and said, "Internationally. Think about the neglected Canadian branches."_**

Dragon's sub-programs sifted through data in specific geographic areas this Saturday morning to flag events which may have had a trigger event behind them, with last night's nationwide Wards mandated 'social event outings' as the cause. Suspicious hospitalizations, arrest incongruities, reported absences, unusual news reports were all sieved for previously unknown capes.

It was a small part of the Endbringer prediction software she ran constantly anyway, so the forwarded information to the PRT branches used barely any of her run time.

She returned her regular project queue to begin to build replacement systems for the ones lost in her latest confrontation with Saint.

 ** _10e4 Sophia finished her Pawn wall in the center of the board and said, "Oh, cry me a river. Who gives a shit about Canada? So, there I was, the only Ward let out of lockdown and…"_**

When their PRT transport finally arrived Sophia finally had some time to herself.

It was the usual hurry-up-and wait, with camera crews adjusted lighting and local reporters primped for their own time on camera.

The speech? Whatever. In these chaotic surroundings there's no way Miss Militia would be able to stop her from saying jack shit.

She felt confident she could do what she wanted. Just the way it should be.

 ** _10Ba6 Dean moved his Bishop to potentially enfilade and break up Sophia's defenses and said, "…and?"_**

With a rush of air Strider appeared in the unused cafeteria used as a briefing room with a large group of people. From her own dealings with the PR department Sophia dimly remembered some of the lackeys who bustled out to accomplish pre-appointed tasks.

Left in the center of this expanding human wave of PR professionals stood Glenn Chambers.

 ** _11Nd2 Sophia recognized the threat and pulled her Knight back defensively and said, "…and I had less freedom than any of you suckers still under house arrest."_**

Glenn talked with Miss Militia briefly while one of the interchangeable interns explained the new cue cards with colored accents and inflection marks to Sophia as her makeup was done by two more PR staff.

She looked off to the side and briefly saw PR people rearranging lights and disconnecting cameras over the objections of TV crews before her head was forced back by the makeup artist.

"I said DON'T MOVE. You almost looked like a raccoon. Now stay still and let me finish."

Sophia concluded, okay maybe she COULDN'T do whatever she wanted.

 ** _11c5 Dean advanced another Pawn to oppose Sophia in the center of the board and said, "At least you're going to go to a better place."_**

Jesse awoke after a practically sleepless night in the Master/Stranger screening cell. They had finally backed off and let him catch a little shut-eye. They said he was just about free to go and would get lunch just before he was processed out.

A slot in the cell door opened and a tray was pushed through.

Scrambled eggs, an English Muffin and a frozen solid pat of butter was all it held.

Jesse looked to the ceiling and said, "Um, hello? Could I get a fork or a knife or something?"

The lights in the room turned red. The turret on the ceiling hosed him down with a thick, viscous, and sticky foam that hardened as it grew.

The speaker blared to life, "Subject has requested a weapon, lockdown initiated."

Jesse found himself submerged under the expanded spongy lattice, unable to move or see, but still able to breathe and barely able to hear.

That was how he heard two voices on the speaker.

"Told you it'd work. The breakfast tray works every time."

"Yeah, yeah… here's your twenty bucks. How'd you guess it was him we'd get to foam last?"

"My kid goes to the same school, told me what these Track Team numbnuts did last week. I figured their captain would be a tougher nut to crack."

Jesse simmered in frustrated rage. 'Were all PRT Agents douchebags, or just these ones?' he wondered.

 ** _12exd5 Sophia claimed first blood as she captured a Pawn of Dean's and said, "Ugh, don't remind me."_**

Deputy Director Rennick had started to pull it all together. The evidence was there, it just was just too subtle to notice unless looked at with the proper perspective. But what he had was just not actionable, unfortunately.

He needed more information on Sophia's behavior at her school, so he considered his options. Maybe replace a teacher with an undercover PRT Agent to watch things? No, Sophia could recognize every PRT guy on sight anyway. It would be a huge waste of resources to have one of the Protectorate capes do it, with the same recognition problems as well. Can't even pull a PRT squaddie to be a student either, they're all too old. All the Wards besides Vista were at the dance **_and_** unmasked, so not only would they be recognized, any of them would be an unprecedented transfer student from Arcadia to Winslow which would fuel the rumor mill in and of itself.

 ** _12cxd4 Dean captured one of Sophia's Pawns in return and threatened her Knight and said, "I know it didn't turn out like you planned."_**

Jesse found out the containment foam release agent did even worse things to his hair than the chemicals from the delousing shower last night. He was able to compare and contrast since they put him through the de-lousing chemical spray a second time before they gave back his clothes.

At least they'd given him an actual towel this time, but even with no mirrors, he was sure his head looked like he had worn a fright wig.

Printed on the door in large letters was 'No Talking To Other Detainees'.

Jesse pushed the door open once he was dressed in another orange jumpsuit and walked through to an unadorned waiting area.

Mike was already there. The boy took a step towards him and said, "Hey, man how are…"

A turret dropped from the ceiling as a voice sternly said, "No talking to the other detainees!"

Mike stepped back and said, "Okay, okay. Just don't fo…"

The turret ejected a thick stream of containment foam on Mike, which entombed the teenager in an expanding shell.

Jesse wisely stayed quiet.

 ** _13Nb5 Sophia felt annoyed with the way she was forced to move her Knight or risk its capture to a wimpy Pawn and said, "Like I planned? Hell no, nothing went the way I planned."_**

Sophia walked up to the podium to give the speech. Glenn raised a tiny dinner bell up by his neck and the delicate _'ding-a-ling'_ made her blood unexpectedly run cold.

From out of camera frame Glenn cleared his throat and stood with arms raised. An intern knelt in front and was obscured by the colored and accented cue cards. Glenn was actually going to 'conduct' her speech.

Her voice rose and fell slightly in pitch as she read the cue cards and followed Glenn's hands in her peripheral vision, "How we treat each other matters…"

 ** _13exd5 Dean captured another of Sophia's Pawns and said, "You still have your friends to support you."_**

Deputy Director Rennick decided that now he'd shot down all the things he _couldn't_ do to observe Sophia at Winslow, it was time to go out on a limb and think of what he _could_ do.

Maybe we could ship in Young Buck? He's experienced, **_but_** if a kid with a Texas twang accent showed up at the same time as a Ward from Houston transferred in for just-this-side-of punishment duty, kiss that secret identity goodbye. What about the new guy? He hasn't been through branding yet and so is unknown to the public, and more importantly he hadn't unmasked to Sophia. But his biggest drawback is that he was untested and inexperienced.

Still, a crap option to present to Director Piggot was better than no option.

 ** _14Nxd4 Sophia captured one of Dean's Pawn as she brought her Knight to the middle of the board and said, "For now, until the repercussions from that speech happen."_**

Jesse walked from his detainment cell with his PRT escort to an empty interrogation room, where she left him alone.

It was just like the ones he'd seen in TV shows. Nothing more than a bare dingy white room with a one-way glass window on one wall. In the middle of the room was a sturdy table bolted to the floor with a ring for handcuffs to be secured in the center. One metal chair that faced the mirrored window was also bolted to the floor. Two metal folding chairs flanked the chair bolted to the floor, and one folding metal chair occupied the other side of the table.

Small security cameras graced the corners where the walls met the ceilings. A circular hatch in the ceiling he recognized was for a containment foam turret placed directly over the lone folding chair closest to the one way glass.

He sat down in the chair bolted to the floor, and knew he could have been handcuffed to the table.

He resigned himself to wait, certain that he was about to get his 'Come to Jesus' meeting.

 ** _14Rc8 Dean repositioned his un-castled Rook and said, "I think more good than bad will come out of all this for you."_**

Sophia's hair follicle toxicity test finally landed with a leaden thud on Deputy Director Rennick's desk.

The file was at least twenty sheets thick. Coupled with her blood screening, he had enough evidence to warrant a PRT a squad to get dispatched to Winslow right now and see what other evidence they could dig up.

 ** _15Re1 Sophia maneuvered her own Rook to strike deep into Dean's territory and said, "Good… Bad… I'm the girl with the crossbow."_**

"…with understanding for each other and hope for the future." Sophia ended the speech as Glenn's hands finally came to a rest.

Glenn said, "Good enough to not need a second take, but let's look at the on-the-fly editing before we send it out and plan for the follow-ups."

A cluster of his ever-present staff and interns worked at laptops and industriously edited the raw footage as the TV station crews took a smoke break outside.

"Insert video montage number three over her left shoulder. The color scheme matches the room better."

"A relatively easy one for once," Glenn said, "Okay, let's watch it through and if we don't encounter any showstoppers we can send it out to the media."

 ** _15b5 Dean put Sophia's Pawn into double jeopardy with a Pawn of his own and said, "Oh come ON, you complained the whole time when we watched Army of Darkness."_**

Jesse's parents and some tiny blonde woman with short hair whose demeanor just screamed 'Social Worker' entered the interrogation room and seated themselves on opposite sides of the table.

"Mr. and Mrs. Case, Jesse, my name is Marcia Darcy and I am your PRT Arbiter," she said as she crossed her hands on top of a folder on the table in front of her, "Your son has cleared screening for Master/Stranger influence, and none has been detected."

Jesse noticed his parents visibly relax at that statement, but he waited for the other metaphorical boot to fall.

"However, this raises the question of why your son and his accomplices conceived of such a prank and implemented it against one of their own teammates last night." PRT Arbiter Darcy looked Jesse in the eyes and asked, "Can you tell me in your own words how this all happened?"

"Shouldn't we have a lawyer, or something?" Jesse asked his father.

PRT Arbiter Darcy interrupted, "No need, I already explained to your parents that if you did choose to obtain legal representation, now that no Master/Stranger influence is involved then the PRT would be forced to return this matter to the Brockton Bay Police where charges against all of you would most likely be filed."

"Such a charge on your record, even as a minor, would have quite the negative impact on any applications you have made to universities and colleges," PRT Arbiter Darcy said as she opened the folder in front of her and fanned out his college application forms on the table. Some were copies, while others he noted were the originals.

Jesse's gut clenched with fear as he realized that if he didn't play ball, they were going to destroy his future over this.

"In my own words?" Jesse confirmed.

PRT Arbiter Darcy nodded and gestured at him to continue.

"It all started on April Fool's Day, when Sophia body slammed Tommy into a wall when she chased us down after someone made those banners fall from the cafeteria ceiling." Jesse said, "The entire Track Team had to run laps for three hours in the rain because of that bitch."

"So you don't like Ms. Hess, I take it?"

"OF COURSE I don't like her! But she's a member of the Track Team and she's my responsibility as Captain." Jesse ranted, "As good as the thing with the banners was, no one on the team claimed credit for it even when I offered fifty bucks to whoever was behind it. No takers."

Jesse leaned forward and said, "Then I found out yesterday she had gone after the girl she'd punched again, so I figured Sophia needed to be taken down a peg."

PRT Arbiter Darcy scribbled down a note and asked, "She'd gone after her? What do you mean?"

"Well, it was yesterday during lunch…."

 ** _16Bb2 Sophia advanced her Bishop to a better angle on Dean's Castle and said, "It was the only way to get Kid Win and Clockblocker to shut up and stop reciting lines with the movie."_**

Sophia sullenly drove back to the Rig with Miss Militia and tried to figure out how to manufacture evidence against Butterfly using her powers in school, or how to lure her out so she could deliver a righteous beat down.

 ** _16Re8 Dean moved his Rook to more firmly defend the center and said, "Anyway, you've got time to wrap things up the way you want.'_**

The PRT unmarked white panel van arrived at Winslow High School. The driver saw the Exterminator vans outside, and observed the plastic 'airlock' tent haphazardly duct taped to the peeling paint around the entrance. A man in coveralls with rubber gloves, a gasmask, and a tank of chemicals on his back walked around the perimeter of the school and sprayed the vents in the foundation.

"Good thing we always have these," his partner said after she pulled out a pair of gasmasks intended to hand out to civilians.

With toolboxes and a clipboard with a realistic looking work order in hand they entered the school.

 ** _17Qd1 Sophia saw the threat of Dean's Rook against her own and moved her Queen back to compensate and said, "I'm finding out I can't always get what I want."_**

Sophia felt her guts clench in terror as she realized Hebert may already have evidence of _her_ using her powers at school.

That camera she ghosted the film out of in the third floor restroom.

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

 ** _17bxc4 "Yep. Life sucks. It's the first of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, also the first acknowledgement in a 12-step program." Dean captured yet another one of Sophia's Pawns and said, "You know, you just lost that Pawn wall, better start to pay attention."_**

Dennis was mildly surprised he was called to Deputy Director Rennick's office.

He figured it had to do with that leadership training he was scheduled to do before Glenn Chambers left town. Like he needed another conflict with the PR department after the many mandatory meetings he'd had regarding his cape name. But at least it broke the tedium caused from lockdown.

His knock on the Deputy Director's door was answered by a curt "Enter."

"You wanted to see me, Deputy Director?" Dennis asked.

"Yes, I just got some information that touches on something from your debriefing," Deputy Director Rennick said, "You said you met a girl that said she had problems with Sophia?"

Dennis answered, "Not just problems, she showed me a scar on her head she claimed came from a glass bottle Sophia had thrown at her after threatening to throw her out a window."

"This girl threatened Sophia?"

"No, sir… Sophia threatened her. She was the same girl Sophia punched last week, apparently."

"I see…. Thank you for coming in, you may go," said Deputy Director Rennick.

 ** _18bxc4 "So what? Pawns are the weakest and therefore the suckiest pieces." Sophia said as she re-took the space with her own Pawn, "Besides, no one in my family ever went in for all that 12 step stuff."_**

Sophia plotted when and how to ransack the Hebert's house. Bet the loser either hid it between her mattresses or in a shoebox on the top shelf of her closet. How imaginative.

 ** _18Qb6 Dean moved his Queen on the flank to prepare for later and said, "Oh, why is that?"_**

Glenn Chambers smiled slightly as he watched his assistants pack up their gear as the last of the copies of the speech were distributed to news organizations around the country.

The reception to the packaged speech had leaned their way in every media market so far. The official spin on the entire situation had worked, a job well done.

Time to log into PHO and see what the public reaction was, and steer it if necessary.

 ** _19Rb1 Sophia repositioned her Rook to prevent Dean from taking her Bishop and said, "They never took the steps seriously enough to make it to any of the reward."_**

Sophia planned how she would be able to push Hebert around at Winslow, wear bug repellant, carry bug spray, get Hebert to use her powers and then hold her off until the PRT arrived. Maybe she could get her hands on a containment foam grenade.

Wait. How would she get the bug spray? She'd have to requisition it. How would she explain her need? _'I got to frame Butterfly?'_

Shit. Forget about the containment foam grenade.

 ** _19dxc4 Dean captured the last of Sophia's Pawn wall and said, "Couldn't keep the eyes on the prize, huh?"_**

Jesse waited in the lobby as his parents completed the seemingly endless paperwork which released him from PRT custody. With an evidence bag of personal belongings, he returned his wallet, loose change and keys to their respective pockets of his rumpled rented tuxedo. Finally, he pulled out his phone, turned his back on his parents and texted 'Hi Yuudai, looks like the MC PP concert is on.'

He slid his phone into his pocket and rejoined his parents.

Across town Yuudai Yagi read the text from his Captain, and texted another two Track Team members who would each text another two until everyone was on the same page.

He downed the rest of his soda and saved the bottle. He'd fill it up again later, along with thirty or so other members of the Track Team.

He hoped Sophia looked good in yellow.

 ** _20Nc6 Sophia saw a way for her Knight to kill Dean's King in two moves. She advanced her chess piece and said, "Nah, it's more like they could never see how their own actions dragged them down time and time again."_**

Sophia figured she would just have to cape her way to victory, draw Hebert out until she did something with her bugs, and nail her for terrorist use of powers. Corner her in private and then beat her ass down. There was no way Hebert's bugs could even touch her in her breaker state.

It wouldn't matter because the Merchant mercenary scumbag would be sent to the Birdcage by the time she was done with her.

 ** _20Rxc6 Dean captured Sophia's unsupported Knight with his Rook and said, "Can't see the forest for the trees, right?"_**

The PRT squad returned from Winslow, with evidence bags of the contraband they found behind Sophia's locker.

"You would not believe what a shithole that school was. I wouldn't fumigate it, I'd burn it down. The smoking ruins would be an improvement."

Deputy Director Rennick asked, "You didn't leave any traces of how you got this, did you?"

"No, once we saw something on the scan behind her locker we tore through the back of a vacant one two doors down and reached over to get it all."

"It won't get noticed?" Deputy Director Rennick asked.

"With gang graffiti on the walls, I doubt a duct-tape repair of an empty locker would even raise an eyebrow."

 ** _21Bxf6 Angry at herself over the loss of such a powerful piece, Sophia captured the Knight right in front of Dean's Castle with her Bishop and said, "More like couldn't see any other tree than the one whose bark they were smoking."_**

Sophia realized she would be able to get away with a **_lot_** more at school now that she was considered the poor little victim.

Go ahead and give the Wolf some Sheep's clothing and see how it turns out.

Sophia sat back and smirked in smug satisfaction as the PRT car arrived back at the Rig.

 ** _21Qxf2+ Dean made his big move, a Queen sacrifice and said, "I see. Check."_**

Deputy Director Rennick looked at the drug screenings, bags of evidence, stacks of patrol reports and interrogation notes from this morning on his desk.

He had her. Hook, line, and sinker.

He picked up the phone to dial Director Piggot when he was alerted that Miss Militia's car had returned.

He dialed the Console so Velocity could put him through to Miss Militia instead.

 ** _22Kxf2 Sophia said, "How the fuck did you… Mother. Fuck." She was forced to capture his Queen, but in the process it dragged her own King out of her Castle and into the dangers of the wider world._**

Miss Milita tilted her head slightly as she listened to her earpiece.

Miss Militia said, "You're not done yet, Sophia. One more debriefing".

The Protectorate cape led the Ward to a conference room to wait. She then left, and the doors closed.

Two PRT guards with angular taser rifles took up position outside.

 ** _22Bc5+ Dean repositioned his Bishop to force Sophia's hand again and said, "Check."_**

PRT ENE Director Emily Piggot hung up on Rennick and called Glenn Chambers, "You know that Titanic PR move you just made? We've got multiple icebergs..."

 ** _23Kf3 Sophia just now realized how limited her options were and said, "Shit." as she was forced to move her King forward again._**

The silence of the empty conference room echoed around her.

Sophia thought, _"Just Great. Even more pointless hurry-up-and-wait."_

 ** _23Rxf6+ Dean captured Sophia's Bishop with his Rook and simultaneously closed off any hope of retreat and said, "Check."_**

Glenn Chambers joined Deputy Director Rennick in Director Piggot's office.

Sophia Hess's Human Resources contract had joined the evidence gathered by Rennick spread out on the PRT Director's desk. On top were bagged paperweights which had recently been hidden in the wall behind the troublesome Ward's locker.

"I knew our poster child was an ' _infant terrible'_ ," Glenn emphasized the phrase with a French pronunciation, "but this is ridiculous."

Glenn Chambers buried his head in his hands.

 ** _24Kg4 Sophia hated being pushed around more than a snowplow after a Nor'easter, but moved her King to the only available space and said, "Goddamn it."_**

Long minutes passed as Sophia sat in the empty conference room and watched the clouds and the waters of the bay.

'Does forced boredom equal torture?' she wondered.

 ** _24Ne5+ Dean brought his Knight into the attack as well and said, "Check."_**

Deputy Director Rennick, PRT ENE Director Piggot, and PR Director Glenn Chambers solemnly entered the conference room.

They quietly sat.

Deputy Director Rennick placed a stack of printouts she recognized as her patrol reports on the table. They were joined by what looked like two folders from Medical, another binder of paperwork, and was topped off by a couple of small glass medication bottles and some still wrapped syringes in an evidence bag.

 ** _25Kg5 Sophia took the least poor option available to her to move her King out of Check and angrily said, "You buttfucking_** **_sonofabitch."_**

Sophia said, "I… uh…

 ** _25Rg6+ Dean casually tapped his Rook to the side and said, "Check. And, no, that would be Carlos, actually."_**

 ** _He blushed as he realized what he had just said about his teammate and added, "Allegedly."_**

Director Piggot placed an evidence bag which held a quarrel of crossbow bolts with bladed tips on the table.

 ** _25Kh5 Sophia finally moved her King out of check and said, "Okay, okay… Jesus. How did all that happen?"_**

Sophia said, "It's not what you think…"

 ** _26f6 Dean moved a Pawn to take up the slack for the Knight he saw he could use as a lure and said, "Forethought, planning, and a charming smile."_**

Glenn Chambers placed the tiny, silver dinner bell from earlier on the table.

 ** _27Rxe5 Sophia took the bait and captured his Knight with her Rook and said, "I think I can still get out of this, give me a minute…"_**

Sophia said, "I'm too valuable for you to just throw away…"

 ** _27Rxe5+ Dean captured Sophia's remaining Knight with his Rook as he boxed in her King yet again and said, "Check. Take all the time you need."_**

Glenn picked up the dinner bell on the table in front of him and gave it a delicate little _'ding-a-ling'_.

 ** _28 Kh4 Sophia retreated her King and said, "God fucking damn it. I can move... no, maybe… no... shit."_**

Terror gripped her as Sophia thought to herself, _"I am sooooo screwed…"_

 ** _28Bc8 Dean moved his Bishop to close off one more escape route in his hunt for Sophia's King and said, "You've delayed pretty much all that you can, Sophia."_**

Director Emily Piggot steepled her fingers, leaned forward, and then encompassed the items on the table in front of her with a sweeping gesture.

"If we knew all of this before the speech, you would have earned a one way ticket to juvenile hall until you turned eighteen, where more charges of what we uncovered would move you to prison for years. We can only show so much favoritism for so long. However, the Wards program in its' entirety needed a win on this one. Needed it so badly PR Director Glen Chambers was forced to personally get involved for you."

"And yet… somehow, in some way you, Miss Hess, through your previous callous actions and disregard for the rules have managed to sabotage even _this_ eleventh hour effort to save your bacon."

"There's a business analogy," Deputy Director Rennick said, "If you borrow a thousand dollars and you can't pay it back, _you're_ in trouble. If you borrow a million dollars and can't pay it back, then you're in _serious_ trouble. If you borrow a billion dollars and can't pay it back, then the _Bank_ is in serious trouble."

Director Piggot continued, "It is excruciatingly obvious that you require supervision which is constantly present if the PRT as a whole is going to push past this unfortunate discovery and maintain the narrative from this mornings' PR event.."

"So, this will have to proceed through normal channels. We can only appear to grease the wheels the absolute minimum. It must look as if the court of public opinion has forced the PRT's hand in this matter."

 ** _Sophia gut turned cold with hatred. She had been outmaneuvered in this stupid game and she knocked over her own King and conceded the game in a huff._**

"Therefore, Miss Hess, you are going where we can keep a much closer, and stricter, watch on you."

 ** _Sophia said, "Oh my god, that came out of nowhere."_**

 ** _Dean said, "Well, not if you're looking three moves ahead, but with THAT game play…."_**

 ** _"Asshole. Ugh... Just how could this day get any worse?" Sophia wondered._**

 ** _"We'll just have to play again, that's all there is to it. You'll never join our chess team at this rate." Dean said_**

Director Piggot intoned, "Enjoy your last week at Winslow, Miss Hess. Monday after next you're transferred to Arcadia."

Author's Note: The chess game played came from the Chess for All Ages website here and is worth a look if you have even the tiniest interest in Chess (the game, not the Musical)

Piggot saying 'maintain the narrative' sounds so much better than 'cover it all up', don't you think?


End file.
